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The Edition de Ltixe is printed frmn type and will 
be limited to Five Hundred Copies, of which this is 



No. 



GEBBIE and COMPANY. 

(ZAXuJLcr-- 



Pi-csident. 




Secretary. 



The Government House, ijgo. 

Page 185. 



UNIFORM EDITION 



NEW YORK 

A Sketch of the City's Social, Political, and 

Commercial Progress from the First 

Dutch Settlement to 

Recent Times 



By 

THEODORE ROOSEVELT 



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PHILADELPHIA 




!IE AND COMPANY 




1903 





THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 

Two Copies Received 

APR 2 1903 

Cop/tignt Entry 

'I'i'lcw, 2-. /(^ r i 
CLASS CO XXc. No. 

I COPY B. ; 



^ ^ ■-' 



Copyright, 1891. 
Copyright, 1903. 

BY 

THEODORE ROOSEVELT 



This edition of "New York" is issued under special 
arrangement with LONGMANS, Green and Company. 



C C C C c 



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PREFACE 



M 



RS. MARTHA J. LAMB'S " History of the 
City of New York," the other histories of 
the city by Miss Booth, and Messrs. Loss- 
ing, Todd, and Valentine; the Brodhead and 
O'Callaghan papers; Hammond's " PoHtical His- 
tory of New York;" Dougherty's "Constitutions 
of New York;" Cooper's "Satanstoe" and "Miles 
Wallingf ord ; " Tuckerman's "Diary of Philip 
Hone;" Parton's "Topics of the Time;" Adams's 
"Chapter of Erie;" Shea's and De Courcey's 
' ' History of the Catholic Church in the United 
States;" and Lounsbury's admirable "Life of 
Cooper," — the best piece of American literary 
biography ever yet done, — are among the author- 
ities consulted in preparing this volume. I wish 
to express my particular thanks to Mr. Brander 
Matthews, w^ho indeed is responsible for my un- 
dertaking to write the book at all. 

The limited space allowed forbade the use of 
the vast mass of manuscript which was obtain- 
able. The temptation was very great to attempt 
a more exhaustive study of the events of the last 
forty years, — that is, the history of modem and 

iii 



iv Preface 

contemporary New York; for this is the most 
important and instructive portion of our history, 
with the possible exception of the Federahst 
period. But of course such a study would be 
entirely out of place in a book of this kind. 

It has been my aim less to collect new facts 
than to draw from the immense storehouse of 
facts already collected those which were of real 
importance in New York history, and to show 
their true meaning, and their relations to one 
another; to sketch the workings of the town's 
life, social, commercial, and political, at suc- 
cessive periods, with their sharp transformations 
and contrasts; and to trace the causes which 
gradually changed a little Dutch trading-hamlet 
into a huge American city. I have also striven 
to make clear the logical sequence and continuity 
of these events; to outline the steps by which 
the city gradually obtained a free political life; 
and to give proper prominence to the remark- 
able and ever-recurring revolutions in the ethnic 
make-up of our mixed population, — a population 
which from the beginning has been composed of 
many different race-elements, and which has 
owed its marvelous growth more to immigration 
than to natural increase. 

I had to content myself with barely touching 
on the social and political problems of the present 
day; for to deal with these at any length would 



Preface v 

turn the volume into a tract instead of a history. 
I have no wish to hide or excuse our faults ; for I 
hold that he is often the best American who strives 
hardest to correct American shortcomings, and is 
most willing to profit by the wisdom and experi- 
ence of other nations, especially of those that are 
nearest akin to us by blood, belief, speech, and 
law, and that are knit closest to us by the kindly 
ties of a former common history and common 
tradition. 

Nevertheless, I am just as little disposed to 
give way to undue pessimism as to undue and 
arrogant optimism. Both our virtues and defects 
should be taken into account. For instance, there 
are great European cities with much cleaner 
mimicipal governments than ours; but on the 
other hand, the condition of the masses of the 
population in these same cities is much worse 
than it is in New York. Our marked superiority 
in one respect is no excuse or palliation for our 
lamentable falling off in another; but it must 
at least be accepted as an offset. We have been 
favored with some peculiar advantages, and we 
have been forced to struggle against other peculiar 
disadvantages; and both must be given due 
weight. 

In speaking to my own countrymen there is 
one point upon which I wish to lay especial stress ; 
that is, the necessity for a feeling of broad, 



VI 



Preface 



radical, and intense Americanism, if good work is 
to be done in any direction. Above all, the one 
essential for success in every political movement 
which is to do lasting good, is that our citizens 
should act as Americans ; not as Americans with 
a prefix and qualification — not as Irish Americans, 
German Americans, Native Americans, — but as 
Americans pure and simple. It is an outrage for 
a man to drag foreign politics into our contests, 
and vote as an Irishman or German or other for- 
eigner, as the case may be ; and there is no worse 
citizen than the professional Irish dynamiter or 
German anarchist, because of his attitude toward 
our social and political life, not to mention his 
efforts to embroil us with foreign powers. But 
it is no less an outrage to discriminate against 
one who has become an American in good faith, 
merely because of his creed or birthplace. Every 
man who has gone into practical politics knows 
well enough that if he joins good men and fights 
those who are evil, he can pay no heed to lines 
of division drawn according to race and religion. 
It would be well for New York if a larger propor- 
tion of her native-bom children came up to the 
standard set by not a few of those of foreign birth. 
The two men who did most to give Brooklyn good 
municipal government were two mayors, one of 
German birth, the other of pure native American 
stock. My own warmest and most disinterested 



Preface 



Vll 



political friends and supporters in the city, and 
most trusty allies in the State Legislature, in- 
cluded men of Irish and German no less than of 
native American descent, — but all of them gen- 
uine Americans, the former just as much so as the 
latter. No city could wish representatives more 
loyal and disinterested in their devotion to the 
welfare of the commonwealth, — a devotion for 
which they were often ill rewarded. Of the last 
four mayors of New York, two have been of native 
and two of Irish stock; and no political line can 
be drawn among them which will not throw one 
Irishman and one American on one side, and one 
Irishman and one American on the other. In 
short, the most important lesson taught by the 
history of New York City is the lesson of Amer- 
icanism, — the lesson that he among us who 
wishes to win honor in our life, and to play his 
part honestly and manfully, must be indeed an 
American in spirit and purpose, in heart and 
thought and deed. 

Sagamore Hill, 

November, 1890. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I 

DISCOVERY AND FIRST SETTLEMENT. 1609-1626 

Hendrik Hudson's discoveries — Spirit of exploration — Con- 
quests of Spain and Portugal — Sea-rovers of Holland and 
England — Settlements on the Atlantic Coast — Effect of battle 
of Lutzen on America — Hudson's relations with the Indians — 
Exploration of the Hudson River — Adrian Block, the first 
shipbuilder of America — The fur trade — The New Netherland 
Company — The West India Company — Foundation of the 
city — Arrival of Peter Minuit i~i3 

CHAPTER II 

THE DUTCH TOWN UNDER THE FIRST THREE DIRECTORS. 

1626— 1647 

Purchase of Manhattan Island — New Amsterdam founded 
— Physical features of the island — Minuit's administration — 
Old-world ideas of colonization — The fur trade — Patroons — 
Vassalage of early settlers — Early farming — Shipbuilding — 
Wouter Van Twiller's administration — The first schoolmaster 
— Relations with Indians — Troubles between Dutch and 
English — Colonies on the Connecticut and the Delaware — 
Kieft's administration — Improvements under Kieft — Immi- 
gration — Swedish settlements on the Delaware — Indian wars 
and massacres — Foundation of popular government — Re- 
moval of Kieft 14-30 

CHAPTER III 

STUYVESANT AND THE END OF DUTCH RULE. 1647-1664 

Stuyvesant's character — Improvement of the colony — 
Ethnic feattires of early population — Incorporation of the 

ix 



X Contents 

city — The stockade on the site of Wall Street — The canal — 
Ravages by wolves — Early colonial architecture and cos- 
tumes — New Year celebrations — Troubles with Indians — 
Revolt on Long Island — Religious persecution — Seizure cf 
New Netherlands by the English 3 1-45 

CHAPTER IV 

NEW AMSTERDAM BECOMES NEW YORK. THE BEGINNING O* 
ENGLISH RULE. 1664-1674 

The city rechristened — English rule all along the coast — 
Dangers surrounding the settlements — Rule of Governor 
NicoUs — Religious liberty — Naturalization — Race prejudice 
— Aristocracy — Refusal of right to elect representatives — 
The peace of Breda — Administration of Governor Lovelace — 
The first social club — Troubles with Long Island Puritans — 
Prosperity — Whaling and fisheries — Early conception of the 
New York Exchange — English and Dutch war — Establish- 
ment of mails — Recapture of New York by the Dutch — Ad- 
ministration of Governor Colve — Cession of the city to the 
English — Appointment of Governor Andros 46-59 

CHAPTER V 

NEW YORK UNDER THE STUARTS. 1674-1688 

Administration of Governor Andros — Flour monopoly — 
Abolition of Indian slavery — Contemplated invasion of New 
England — Recall of Andros — Administration of Lieutenant- 
Governor Brockholls — Internal disturbances — Demand for a 
Provincial Assembly — Administration of Governor Dongan — 
Religious toleration — Establishment of the Provincial As- 
sembly — Charter of liberties and privileges — Self-government 
secured — Naturalization — Increased prosperity — The Board 
of Aldermen — Sabbatarian laws — Tyranny of James II. — 
Downfall of Dongan — Reappointment of Andros — Accession 
of William III. — Fall of Andros — Union between English and 
Dutch elements — Race differences and fusion 60-73 



Contents xi 

CHAPTER VI 

THE USURPATION OF LEISLER. 1689-169I 

Internal dissensions — Rise of the popular party — Leader- 
ship of Leisler and Milborne — Religious troubles — Seizure of 
the fort by Leisler — The popular party in control of the city — 
Machinations of the House of Stuart — Headstrong policy of 
Leisler — -Animosity between Leisler and the Aristocracy — 
Leisler's treason — Committee of safety — Election of the first 
mayor — Congress of the colonies — Expedition against Canada 
— Privateering — "Waning power of Leisler — Appointment of 
Governor Sloughtcr — Skirmish between regulars and mihtia 
— Execution of Leisler and Milborne — Downfall of the popular 
party — Limited rehgious liberty 73~88 

CHAPTER VII 

THE. GROWTH OF THE COLONIAL SEAPORT. 169I-172O 

Wars with France — Self-government — Shipping industries 
— Privateers and pirates — Slave trade — Foundations of large 
fortunes — Freebooters — Governor Fletcher's connivance at 
piracy — Administration of Fletcher — Smuggling — Recall of 
Fletcher — Administration of Governor Bellomont — Active 
measures against pirates — Career of Captain Kidd — Reform 
of land system — Election frauds — Administration of Lord 
Cornbury — Demands for self-government — Administration of 
Governor Hunter — German immigration 89-107 

CHAPTER VIII 

THE CLOSE OF THE COLONIAL PERIOD. 172O-1764 

Characteristics of population — Religious bodies — English 
the official language — King's College — Social lines — Social 
customs — Sports — Armorial bearings — Dutch festivals — Ed- 
ucation — Constituents of New York society — Labor — Negro 
slavery — Negro insurrection — Incendiary fires — The New 
York Gazette — The Weekly Journal — Liberty of the press — 
Familv factions 10S-125 



xii Contents 

CHAPTER IX 

THE UNREST BEFORE THE REVOLUTION. 1764-1774 

A new chapter in American history — Threatened disruption 
of colonial system — European theory of colonization — Atti- 
tude of colonies toward Mother Country in matters of defense 
— Verdict of history on revolt of the colonies — British opera- 
tions — Position of the colonies contrasted with that of the 
Federal Union of States — Classes and parties — New York 
leaders of the Revolution — The Stamp Act — Sons of Liberty 
— Stamp-Act riots — Repeal of the Stamp Act — The Billeting 
Act — The Liberty- Pole riots — The Tea Act and its results — 
The First Continental Congress 126-148 

CHAPTER X 

THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR. 1775-1783 

The Second Continental Congress — Lukewarmness about 
Revolution — The Loyalists — Mob violence — Closing of Epis- 
copal Churches — The struggle for independence — Abolition 
of the Colonial Assembly — Washington assumes command in 
New York — ^Weakness of the city — British operations against 
New York — The Hessians — Tory plots — American defeat on 
Long Island — Washington's evacuation of the city — Defeat 
at Kip's Bay — Action at Haarlem Heights — Battle of White 
Plains— Washington's retreat to New Jersey — Victory at 
Trenton — Terrors of the British occupation — Great fires — 
Execution of Nathan Hale — Horrors of the prisons — Wash- 
ington's difficulties — British evacuation 149-172 

CHAPTER XI 

THE FEDERALIST CITY. 1783-180O 

Depression after the Revolution — Improvements and re- 
building — Columbia College — The New York Society Library 
— -The State Constitution — Religious toleration — The New 
York Medical Society — The "Doctors' Mob" riots — Enlarge- 



Contents xiii 



ment of commerce — Suffrage, and appointment to office — 
Municipal government — State patronage — Foundation of the 
Federal Government — Leaders of the Federalist party — Gov- 
ernor Clinton — "The Federalist" — Procession in honor of the 
Federal Constitution — New York the Federal capital — The 
Jeffersonian Republicans — Federal patronage — Aaron Burr — 
Scurrility of the press — Political riots — Election of Burr to the 
Vice- Presidency — Downfall of the Federalist party 173-192 

CHAPTER XII 

THE BEGINNING OF DEMOCRATIC RULE. 1801-182I 

Tie vote between Jefferson and Burr — Rise of democratic 
supremacy — The spoils system— Family influence in politics 
— Downfall of Burr — Hamilton killed by Burr — Fall of the 
Livingstons from power — Political bitterness — State banks — 
Social life and customs — Municipal regulations — Markets — 
Sanitary deficiencies — Charities — Foundation of free-school 
system — Scientific and literary societies — Literature — Begin- 
ning of steam navigation — The War of 1812 — Right of 
search — Pri\fateering— European immigration — Assimilation 
of the Dutch — Negro emancipation — The "New England 
invasion" 193-212 

CHAPTER XIII 

THE GROWTH OF THE COMMERCIAL AND DEMOCRATIC CITY. 

1821—1860 

Increased population — Constitutional amendments — Ex- 
tension of suffrage — Negro suffrage — Constitutional pro- 
visions for election of officers — Material prosperity — The Erie 
Canal — Steam transportation and electricity — Commercial 
enterprise — Careers of John Jacob Astor and Cornelius Van- 
derbilt — The fur trade — The clipper ships of New York — 
Decay of shipping — Dangers of poverty — Increase of immi- 
gration — The German population — -The Irish population — 
Americanization of immigrants — Growth of the Roman 
Catholic Chiu-ch — The cholera epidemic — Riots — Political 



xiv Contents 



parties — Roman Catholic opposition to the pubUc-school 
system — Power of Tammany Hall — Election frauds — Munici- 
pal bribery — State interference in municipal matters — Police 
riots — Architecture — Art and literature — European travel 
and its influence — Social features 213-244 

CHAPTER XIV 

RECENT HISTORY. 1860-189O 

Increase of population and municipal territory — Outbreak 
of the Civil War — Secession influences — Reawakened loyalty 
—Active support of the Federal Government — Draft riots — 
Hibernian riots — Political corruption— Stock-swindling — The 
Tweed ring — Dangers of the political system, and their 
remedies — Change of character of immigration — Relative 
strength of the churches — Improvement in architecture — The 
East River Bridge — Central Park — Clubs — Public buildings 
— Charities — Cooper Union — Celebration of the Federal Con- 
stitution's centennial — Science, art, and literature — Social 
life — Future prospects 245-264 



Postscript 265 

Index 277 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



Frontispiece 


y 


■ ■ 38 


y 


• 174 


y 



The Government House, 1790 

Wall Street from Trinity Church 

Federal Hall, 1797 

City of New York, 1803 .... 194 ^ 

Corporal Thompson's House of Refresh- 
ment ........ 204 

Ruins after the Great Fire, 1835 . . 234 



These illustrations are reproductions from the collection of the 
Hon. John D. Crimmins. 



3tV 



NEW YORK 



CHAPTER I. 

DISCOVERY AND FIRST SETTLEMENT. 1609-1626. 

EARLY in September, 1609, the ship Half- 
Moon, restlessly skirting the American 
coast, in the vain quest for a strait or other 
water route leading to India, came to the mouth 
of a great lonely river, flowing silently out from 
the heart of the unknown continent. The Half- 
Moon was a small, clumsy, high-pooped yacht, 
manned by a score of Dutch and English sea-dogs, 
and commanded by an English adventurer then 
in Dutch pay, and known to his employers as 
Hendrik Hudson. He, his craft, and his crew 
were all typical of the age, — an age fertile in ad- 
venture-loving explorers, eager to sail under any 
flag that promised glory and profit, at no matter 
what cost of hardship and danger; an age fertile 
also beyond measure in hardy seamen, of whom 
the hardiest and bravest came from England and 
the Netherlands. It was a period when the great- 



2 New York 

est deeds were done on the ocean by these rough 
heroes of cutlass and compass. They won honor 
by exploring unknown seas and taking possession 
of and subjugating unknown lands, no less than 
by their prowess in the grim water-fights which 
have made their names immortal. Their small 
ships dared the dangers of the most distant oceans, 
and shattered the sea-might of every rival naval 
power; and they themselves led lives of stormy 
peril and strong pleasure, and looked forward 
unmoved to inevitable death in some one of their 
countless contests with man or with the elements. 
For a century and a quarter Spain and Portugal 
had not only taken the lead in, but had almost 
monopolized all ocean exploration and trans- 
oceanic settlement and conquest, while the most 
daring navigators were to be found in their ranks, 
or among the Italians who served both them and 
their rivals. Even at the beginning of the seven- 
teenth century they were still the only peoples 
who had permanently occupied any portion of the 
New World; and their vast possessions included 
all of tropical, sub-tropical, and south-temperate 
America. But by this time, in a hundred fights 
the sea-beggars and sea-rovers of Holland and 
England had destroyed the cumbrous navies of 
the Spanish king, and won from those who fought 
for his flag the mastery of the ocean. Spain was 
still a great power; but it was a power whose 



First Settlement 3 

might was waning. From the time when the 
races of middle and northern Europe first planted 
their standards in the New World they have stood 
toward the Spaniards and Spanish Americans as 
aggressors. Their blows had to be parried and 
returned; sometimes they have been returned 
with good effect, but as a whole the Spanish people 
have always been on the defensive, fearing, not 
threatening, conquest. 

Yet, though the career of Spain as a conquering 
power was thus cut short, two pregnant centuries 
passed by before her children lost any consider- 
able portion of the land which she held when the 
ships of the English colonists first sighted the 
shores of America. During the early part of the 
seventeenth century the Atlantic coast from 
Acadia to Florida became dotted with the settle- 
ments of half a dozen different European nations. 
At irregular intervals along this extended sea- 
board the French, the English, the Dutch, the 
Swedes, as well as the Spaniards, built little forts 
and established small trading-towns. When the 
English had fairly begun to take root in New 
England and Virginia, the Dutch still held the 
Hudson, and the Swedes the mouth of the Dela- 
ware ; Acadia was still French, and Florida Span- 
ish. It was altogether imcertain which one of 
these races would prove victor over the others, or 
whether any one would. There was at least a 



4 New York 

good chance that even the Spaniards would hold 
their own, and that temperate North America, 
like temperate Europe, would be held by many- 
nations, differing one from the other in speech, in 
religion, and in blood. We have grown so accus- 
tomed to regarding America north of the Rio 
Grande as the natural heritage of the English- 
speaking peoples that we find it hard to realize 
how uncertain seemed the prospect at the period 
when colonization began. None could foretell 
which power would win in the struggle; and the 
fate of America was bound up in wars in which 
her future was hardly, if at all, considered. If 
Gustavus Adolphus had not fallen on the field of 
Liitzen, and had he founded, as he hoped, a great 
Scandinavian kingdom encircling the Baltic, and 
with fleets as powerful as her armies, it may well 
be that the fame and terror of the Swedish name 
would have insured peace and prosperity to the 
transatlantic Swedish colonists. Had the Dutch 
fleets been but a trifle stronger, and had the Dutch 
diplomats prized Manhattan as they prized Java, 
the New Netherlands might never have become 
New York. It seemed, and was, perfectly possi- 
ble in the seventeenth century, that the nineteenth 
would see flourishing Dutch and Swedish states 
firmly seated along the Hudson and the Delaware, 
exactly as a thriving French commonwealth ac- 
tually is seated along the lower St. Lawrence. 



First Settlement 5 

Thus it came about that the English colonists 
and their American descendants not only had to 
tame a wild and stubborn continent, and ever to 
drive back from before their advance the doomed 
tribesmen of the forest and prairie, but also had 
to wrest many of the fairest portions of the domain 
which the English-speaking Americans inherit, 
from the hands of other intruders of European 
blood. Many of the cities of the Union bear tes- 
timony by their early history to this fact. Al- 
bany, Detroit, and Santa Fe are but three out of 
many towns wherein the English reaped what the 
Dutch, the French, or the Spaniards had sown. 

The history of New York deserves to be studied 
for more than one reason. It is the history of the 
largest English-speaking city which the English 
conquered but did not found, and in which though 
the English law and governmental system have 
ever been supreme, yet the bulk of the population, 
composed as it is and ever has been of many shift- 
ing strains, has never been English. Again, for 
the past hundred years, it is the history of a won- 
derfully prosperous trading-city, the largest in the 
world in which the democratic plan has ever been 
faithfully tried for so long a time; and the trial, 
made under some exceptional advantages and 
some equally exceptional disadvantages, is of 
immense interest, alike for the measure in which 



6 New York 

it has succeeded and for the measure in which it 
has failed. 

Hudson, on coming to the river to which his 
name w^as afterward given, did not at first know 
that it was a river at all; he believed and hoped 
that it was some great arm of the sea, that in fact 
it was the Northwest Passage to India, which he 
and so many other brave men died in vainly tr^dng 
to discover. For a week he lay in the lower bay, 
and then for a day shifted his anchorage into what 
is now New York Harbor ; his boats explored the 
surrounding shore-line, and found many Indian 
villages, for the neighborhood seemed well peopled. 
The savages flocked to see the white strangers, and 
eagerly traded off their tobacco for the knives and 
beads of the Europeans. Of course occasions of 
quarrel were certain to arise between the rough, 
brutal sailors and the fickle, suspicious, treacher- 
ous red men ; and once a boat's crew was attacked 
by two canoes, laden with warriors, and a sailor 
was killed by an arrow which pierced his throat. 
Yet on the whole their relations were friendl}^ and 
the trading and bartering went on imchecked. 

Hudson soon found that he was off the mouth 
of a river, not a strait ; and he spent three weeks 
in exploring it, sailing up till the shoaling water 
warned him that he was at the head of navigation, 
near the present site of Albany. He found many 



First Settlement 7 

small Indian tribes scattered along the banks, and 
usually kept on good terms with them, presenting 
their chiefs with trinkets of various kinds, and 
treating them for the first time to a taste of ' 'fire- 
water," the terrible curse of their race ever since. 
In return he was well received when he visited the 
bark wigwams, his hosts holding feasts for him, 
where the dishes included not only wild fowl, but 
also fat dogs, killed by the squaws, and skinned 
with mussel shells. The Indians, who had made 
some progress in the ruder arts of agriculture, 
brought to the ship quantities of corn, beans, and 
pumpkins from the great heaps drying beside their 
villages ; and their fields, yielding so freely to even 
their poor tillage, bore witness to the fertility of 
the soil. Hudson had to be constantly on his 
guard against his new-found friends ; and once he 
was attacked by a party of hostile warriors whom 
he beat off, killing several of their number. How- 
ever, what far outweighed such danger in the 
gain-greedy eyes of the trade-loving adventurers, 
was the fact that they saw in the possession of the 
Indians great stores of rich furs ; for the merchants 
of Europe prized furs as they did silks, spices, 
ivory, and precious metals. 

Having reached the head of navigation the 
Half-Moon turned her bluff bows southward, 
and drifted down stream with the rapid current 
until she once more reached the bay. The 



8 New York 

brilliant fall weather had been varied at times 
with misty days and nights; and during the 
Half-Moon's inland voyage her course had lain 
through scenery singularly wild, grand, and lonely. 
She had passed the long line of frowning, battle- 
mented rock-walls that we know by the name 
of the Palisades ; she had threaded her way round 
the bends where the curving river sweeps in 
and out among bold peaks, — Storm King, Crow's 
Nest, and their brethren ; she had sailed in front 
of the Catskill Mountains, perhaps even thus early 
in the season crowned with shining snow. From 
her decks the lookouts scanned with their watchful 
eyes dim shadowy wastes, stretching for coimtless 
leagues on every hand; for all the land was 
shrouded in one vast forest, where red hunters 
who had never seen a white face followed wild 
beasts, upon whose kind no white man had ever 
gazed. 

Early in October, Hudson set out on his home- 
ward voyage to Holland, where the news of his 
discovery excited much interest among the daring 
merchants, especially among those whose minds 
were bent on the fur- trade. Several of the latter 
sent small ships across to the newly found bay and 
river, both to barter with the savages and to 
explore and report further upon the country. 

The most noted of these sea-captains who fol- 
lowed Hudson, was Adrian Block, who while at 



First Settlement 9 

anchor off Manhattan Island lost his vessel by fire. 
He at once set about building another, and being 
a man of great resource and resolution, succeeded. 
Creating everything for himself, and working in 
the heart of the primeval forest, he built and 
launched a forty-five-foot yacht which he chris- 
tened the Onrest (the Restless), fit name for 
the bark of one of these daring, ever-roaming ad- 
venturers. This primitive pioneer vessel was the 
first ever launched in our waters, and her keel was 
the first which ever furrowed the waters of the 
Sound. 

The first trading and exploring ships did well, 
and the merchants saw that great profits could be 
made from the Manhattan fur- trade. Accordingly, 
they determined to establish permanent posts 
at the head of the river and at its mouth. The 
main fort was near the mouth of the Mohawk, but 
they also built a few cabins at the south end of 
Manhattan Island, and left therein half a dozen 
of their employees, with Hendrik Christiansen as 
head man over both posts. The great commercial 
city of New York thus had its origin, not unfit- 
tingly, in a cluster of traders' huts. From this 
obscure beginning was to spring one of the 
mightiest cities of any age, marvelous alike for its 
wonderfully rapid growth and its splendid mate- 
rial prosperity. From the outset the new town, 
destined to be the largest in the New World, 



lo New York 

mayhap even the largest in all the world, took its 
place among those communities which owe their 
existence and growth primarily to commerce, their 
whole character and development for good and 
evil being more profoundly affected by commer- 
cial than by any other influences. Even in its 
very foimding, the direction in which the great 
city on Manhattan Island should develop was 
foreshadowed, and its course outlined in advance. 
Christiansen was soon killed by an Indian. For 
two or three years his fellow-traders lived on 
Manhattan Island much in the same way as men 
now live at the remoter outposts of the fur-trade 
in the far northwest of this continent. Some kept 
decent and straight ; others grew almost as squalid 
and savage as the red men in whose midst they 
lived. They hunted, fished, and idled; some- 
times they killed their own game, sometimes 
they got it by barter from the Indians, to- 
gether with tobacco and corn. Now and then they 
quarreled with the surrounding savages, but gen- 
erally they kept on good terms with them ; and in 
exchange for rum and trinkets they gathered in- 
numerable bales of valuable furs, — mostly of the 
beaver, which swarmed in all the streams, but also 
of otter, and of the many more northern kinds, 
such as the sable and the fisher. At long intervals 
these furs were piled in the holds of the three or 
four small vessels whose yearly or half yearly 



First Settlement n 

arrival from Holland formed the chief relief to 
the monotony of the fur-traders' existence. 

The merchants who first sent over vessels and 
built a trading-post, joined with others to form 
the "New Netherland Company"; for it was a 
time when settlement and conquest were under- 
taken more often by great trading companies than 
by either the national government or by individ- 
uals. The Netherlands government granted this 
company the monopoly of the fur-trade with the 
newly discovered territory for three years from 
1615, and renewed the grant for a year at a time 
until 162 1, when it was allowed to lapse, a more 
powerful competitor being in the field. The com- 
pany was a mere trading corporation, and made 
no effort to really settle the land ; but the fur-trade 
proved profitable, and the post on Manhattan 
Island was continued, while another was built 
near the head of the Hudson, close to the present 
site of Albany. 

In 162 1, the great West India Company was 
chartered by the States-general, and given the 
monopoly of the American trade ; and it was by 
this company that the city was really founded, the 
first settlement being made which was intended 
to be permanent. All the magnificent territory 
discovered by Hudson was granted it under the 
name of the New Netherlands. The company was 
one of the three or four huge commercial corpora- 



12 New York 

tions of imperial power that played no small part 
in shaping the world's destiny during the two cen- 
turies immediately preceding the present. It was 
in its constitution and history archetypical of the 
time. The great trading-city of America was 
really founded by no one individual, nor yet by 
any national government, but by a great trading 
corporation, created however to fight and to bear 
rule no less than to carry on commerce. The 
merchants who formed the West India Company 
were granted the right to exercise powers such 
as belong to sovereign States, because the task to 
which they set themselves was one of such incred- 
ible magnitude and danger that it could be done 
only on such terms. They were soldiers and sail- 
ors no less than traders ; it was only merchants of 
iron will and restless daring who could reap the 
golden harvests in those perilous sea-fields, where 
all save the strongest surely perished. The paths 
of commerce were no less dangerous than those 
of war. 

The West India Company was formed for trade, 
and for peopling the world's waste spaces : and it 
was also formed to carry on fierce war against the 
public enemy, the King of Spain. It made war 
or peace as best suited it; it gave governors and 
judges to colonies and to conquered lands; it 
founded cities, and built forts ; and it hired mighty 
admirals to lead to battle and plimder, the ships of 



First Settlement 13 

its many fleets. Some of the most successful and 
heroic feats of arms in the history of the Nether- 
lands were performed by the sailors in the pay of 
this company ; steel in their hands brought greater 
profit than gold; and the fortunate stockholders 
of Amsterdam and Zealand received enormous 
dividends from the sale of the spoil of the sacked 
cities of Brazil, and of the captured treasure-ships 
which had once formed part of the Spanish ' 'silver 
fleet." 

In the midst of this turmoil of fighting and trad- 
ing, the company had little time to think of colo- 
nizing. Nevertheless, in 1624 some families of 
protestant Walloons were sent to the Hudson in 
the ship New Netherland a few of them staying 
on Manhattan Island. The following summer sev- 
eral more families arrived, and the city may be 
said to have been really founded, the dwellers on 
Manhattan Island after that date including per- 
manent settlers besides the mere transient fur- 
traders. Finally in May, 1626, the director, Peter 
Minuit, a Westphalian, appointed by the company 
as first governor of the colony, arrived in the har- 
bor in his ship the Sea-Mew, leading a band of 
true colonists, — men who brought with them their 
wives and little ones, their cattle and their house- 
hold goods, and who settled down in the land with 
the purpose of holding it for themselves and for 
their children's children. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE DUTCH TOWN UNDER THE FIRST THREE 
DIRECTORS, 1626-1647. 

WITH the arrival of Director Minuit, the 
settlement at the mouth of the Hudson 
first took on permanent form and be- 
came an organized community. He bought 
Manhattan Island from its Indian owners for the 
sum of sixty guilders, or about twenty-four dol- 
lars, and during the siimmer founded thereon a 
little town, christened New Amsterdam. It soon 
grew to contain some two hundred souls. Even 
at the beginning, the population was composed 
of peoples diverse in race and speech; not only 
were there Dutchmen and Walloons, but also 
even thus early a few Huguenots, Germans, and 
Englishmen. 

The island was then a mass of tangled, frowning 
forest, fringed with melancholy marshes, which 
near the present site of Canal Street approached 
so close together from either side that they almost 
made another small island of the southern end. 
The settlers staked out a fort on the southernmost 
point, and huddled near it in their squalid huts; 
while they closely watched their cattle, which 
were in imminent danger from wolves, bears, and 



The Dutch Town 15 

panthers whenever they strayed into the wood- 
land. 

Minuit was a kindly man, of firm temper, much 
energy, and considerable executive capacity; on 
the whole he was by far the best of the four direc- 
tors who successively ruled the city and colony 
during the forty years of the Dutch supremacy. 
But the scheme of colonization was defective in 
more than one vital particular. The settlement 
was undertaken primarily in the interest of a great 
commercial corporation, and only secondarily in 
the interests of the settlers themselves. The 
world had not yet grasped the fact that those who 
went abroad to build mighty States in far-off lands 
ought by rights to be themselves the main benefi- 
ciaries of their toil and peril. A colony was con- 
sidered as being established chiefly for the good 
of the colonists. 

The West India Company wished well to its 
settlers, who were granted complete religious 
freedom, and in practice a very considerable 
amount of civil liberty likewise; but after 
all, the company held that the first duty of 
the New Netherlands colony was to return large 
dividends to the company's stockholders, and 
especially to advance the worldly welfare of the 
company's most influential directors. It sought 
to establish a chain of trading-posts which should 
bring great wealth to the mother coimtry, rather 



i6 New York 

than to lay the foundations of a transatlantic 
nation of Dutch freemen. Hence, the settlers 
never felt a very fervent loyalty for the govern- 
ment under which they lived, and in its moment 
of mortal peril betrayed small inclination to risk 
their lives and property in a quarrel which was 
hardly their own. 

This attitude of the old West India Company 
was that naturally adopted by all such corpo- 
rations. It was curiously paralleled, even in our 
own day, by the way in which the great Hudson 
Bay Company shut the fertile valleys of the Red 
River and the Saskatchawan to all settlement. 
It was a thoroughly unhealthy attitude. 

Minuit was active in establishing friendly re- 
lations with the savages. His boats explored the 
neighboring creeks and inlets, and the Indians 
were well treated whenever they came to the little 
hamlet on Manhattan Island. In consequence 
they freely brought their stores of valuable furs 
for barter and sale. For two or three years the 
trade proved profitable, while, from other causes, 
the stock of the company rose to a high premium 
on the exchanges of Holland. 

In 1628, for the purpose of promoting immi- 
gration, an act was passed granting to any man 
who should bring over a colony of fifty souls a 
large tract of land and various privileges, with the 
title of "Patroon." These patroons were really 



The Dutch Town 17 

great feudal lords, who farmed out their vast 
estates to tenants who held the ground on various 
conditions. Their domains were often as large 
as old-world principalities; as an instance, Rens- 
selaerswyck, the property of the Patroon Van 
Rensselaer, was a tract containing a thousand 
square miles. The introduction of this very 
aristocratic system was another evidence of the 
unwisdom of the governing powers. Moreover, 
the patroons, whose extensive privileges were 
curtailed in certain directions, — notably in that 
they were forbidden to enter into the lucrative 
fur-trade, the chief source of profit to the com- 
pany, — soon began to rebel against these restric- 
tions. They quarreled fiercely with the com- 
pany's representatives, and traded on their own 
account with the Indians ; and the various private 
traders not only cut into the company's profits, 
but also, being amenable to no law, soon greatly 
demoralized the savages. 

The settlers on Manhattan Island were not 
treated as freemen, but as the vassals of the com- 
pany. For many years they were not even given 
any title to the land on which they built their 
houses, being considered simply as tenants at will, 
Minuit, it is true, chose from among them an 
advisory council, but it could literally only advise, 
and in the last resort the company had absolute 
power. The citizens had certain officers of their 



i8 New York 

own, but they were powerless in the event of any 
struggle with the director. When the latter was, 
like Minuit, a sensible, well-disposed man, affairs 
went well enough, and the people were allowed to 
govern themselves, and were happy ; but a direc- 
tor of tyrannous temper always had it in his power 
to rule the colony almost as if he were an absolute 
despot. 

For six years Minuit remained in New Amster- 
dam, ruling the people mildly, preserving by a 
mixture of tact and firmness friendly relations 
with the Indians and with his Enghsh neighbors to 
the eastward, — to whom he sent a special embassy, 
which was most courteously received, — and keep- 
ing on good terms with the powerful and haughty 
patroons. During these years the trade of the 
colony increased and flourished, rich cargoes of 
valuable furs being sent to Holland in the home- 
ward-bound ships, and the population of Man- 
hattan Island gradually grew in nimibers and 
wealth. Farms or "boueries" were established; 
and the settlers raised wheat, rye, buckwheat, 
flax, and beans, while their herds and flocks throve 
apace. The company soon built a mill, a brewery, 
a bakery, and great warehouses, and society began 
to gain some of the more essential comforts of 
civilization. Nevertheless, the company quar- 
reled with Minuit. He was accused of unduly 
favoring the patroons, whose private ventures in 



The Dutch Town 19 

the fur-trade were encroaching upon the com- 
pany's profits, and moreover he had been drawn 
into a scheme of ship-building, which though suc- 
cessful, — a very large and fine ship being built and 
launched in the bay, — nevertheless proved much 
too expensive for the taste of his employers. Ac- 
cordingly, he was recalled ; and later on, deeming 
himself to have been ill-treated, he took service 
imder the Swedish queen. 

His successor was Wouter Van Twiller, who 
reached New Amsterdam early in 1633. Van 
Twiller was a good-natured, corpulent, wine- 
bibbing Dutchman, loose of life, and not over- 
strict in principle, and with a slow, irresolute mind. 
However, as he was an easy-going man his rule 
did not bear hardly on the colonists, while he won 
for himself an honorable reputation by devoting 
much of his time to the construction of public 
buildings. Thus, he made a new fort of earthen 
banks with stone bastions, enclosing within its 
walls not only the soldiers' barracks, but also at 
first the governmental residence and public ofhces ; 
he also built several windmills and the first church 
which was used solely as such, as well as houses 
for the dominie and for the schout-fiscal. The 
latter was the most important of the local officers ; 
he possessed curious and extensive powers, being 
the chief executive of the local government, and 
answering roughly to both the English sheriff and 



20 New York 

town constable, though with a far wider and more 
complicated range of duties. The colony had at 
this time received two important additions in 
the shape of the first schoolmaster — who failed 
ingloriously in his vocation, and then tried to eke 
out his scanty salary by taking in washing, — and 
the first regular clergyman. The clergyman. 
Dominie Bogardus, was a man of mark and of 
high character, though his hot temper made him 
unpopular. 

Van Twiller kept on fairly friendly terms with 
the Indians, though causes of quarrel between the 
settlers and the savages were constantly arising. 
Plenty of wrong was done on each side, and it 
would be hard to say where the original ground 
of offense lay. Probably the whites could not 
have avoided a war in the end ; but they certainly 
by their recklessness and brutality did all in their 
power to provoke the already suspicious and 
treacherous red men. The history of the dealings 
of the Dutch with the Indians is not pleasant 
reading. 

Under Van Twiller there were endless troubles 
with the English. Both England and Holland 
claimed the country from the Connecticut to the 
Delaware, each wishing it really more for purposes 
of trade than of colonization; and the quarrels 
generally arose over efforts of rival vessels of the 
two nationalities to control the trade with some 



The Dutch Town 21 

special band of savages. In Van Twiller's time 
an English vessel entered the Hudson and sailed 
to the head of navigation, where she anchored and 
began to barter with the savages for their furs; 
whereupon the Dutch soldiers from the neighbor- 
ing fort fell upon her and drove her off, confiscat- 
ing the furs. At the same time Van Twiller built 
a fort and established a garrison on the Connecti- 
cut, threatening to hold it by force against the 
English ; but when the pinch came the Hollanders 
failed to make their threats good, and the Puritans 
from Plymouth sailed up the river and took pos- 
session of the banks in defiance of their foes. 

Better luck attended Van Twiller's efforts on 
the Delaware, the Cavaliers proving easier to deal 
with than the Roundheads. The Dutch had 
already built a colony on this river ; but the colo- 
nists became embroiled with the Indians, who 
fell on them and massacred them to a man. Then 
a party of Virginians established themselves in 
one of the deserted Dutch forts, and set about 
founding a settlement and trading-post; but 
when the news was brought to the director at 
New Amsterdam, he promptly despatched a party 
of troops against the invaders, who were all taken 
captive and brought in triumph to Manhattan 
Island. Van Twiller hardly knew what to do 
with them; so he scolded them soundly for the 
enormity of their offense in trespassing on Dutch 



22 New York 

territory, and then shipped them back to Virginia 
again. The internal affairs of the colony went more 
smoothly. There were occasional quarrels with 
the powerful patroons, but the director was much 
too fond of his ease, and of wine and high living 
to oppress or rule harshly the commonalty; and 
the value of the trade with the home country on 
the whole increased, though it never became suf- 
ficient to make the company take very much 
thought for its new possession. But Van Twiller 
though easy-going to the people was not an honest 
or faithful servant to the company in matters 
financial; and in 1637 he was removed from his 
office on the charge of having diverted the moneys 
of the corporation to his own private use. 

His successor, Wilhelm Kieft, was much the 
worst of the four Dutch governors. Unlike his 
predecessor, he was industrious and temperate; 
but he possessed no talent whatever for managing 
men, and had the mean, cruel temper of a petty 
despot. His mercantile reputation was also none 
of the best; though during his administration he 
himself kept reasonably clear of financial scandals. 
In fact, the West India Company was tired of a 
colony which proved a drain on its revenue rather 
than a source of profit ; and any second-rate man, 
who bade fair not to trouble the people at home, 
was deemed good enough to be governor of such 
an unpromising spot. 



The Dutch Town 23 

Kieft found the New Netherlands in a far 
from flourishing condition. The Dutch colonists, 
though stubborn and resolute, were somewhat 
sluggish and heavy tempered, without the restless 
energy of their far more numerous and ever- 
encroaching neighbors on the east (the New Eng- 
landers), and lacking the intense desire for what 
was almost mere adventure, which drove the 
French hither and thither through the far-off 
wilderness. Population had increased but slowly, 
and the town which huddled round the fort on the 
south point of Manhattan Island was still little 
more than a collection of poor hovels. The Hol- 
landers were traders and seafarers, and they found 
it hard to settle down into farmers, who alone can 
make permanent colonists. Moreover, at the 
outset they were naturally unable to adapt them- 
selves to the special and peculiar needs of their 
condition. The frontier and frontier life date 
back to the days when the first little struggling 
settlements were dotted down on the Atlantic 
seaboard, as islets in a waste of savagery ; but it 
always took at least a generation effectively to 
transform a European colonist into an American 
frontiersman. Thus the early Dutch settlers took 
slowly and with reluctance to that all-important 
tool and weapon of the American pioneer, the axe, 
and chopped down very little timber indeed. As 
a consequence, they lived in dugouts or cabins of 



24 New York 

bark and poles, lacking the knowledge to build 
the log huts, which always formed the first and 
characteristic dwellings of the true baclov^oods- 
men. It was a good many years before the back- 
woods type, so characteristically American, had 
opportunity to develop. 

Kieft was not well pleased with the colony, and 
the colony was still less pleased with Kieft. From 
the beginning he took the tone of a tyrant, treating 
the colonists as his subjects. He appointed as 
coiincil but one man, a Huguenot of good repute, 
named La Montagne, and then, to prevent all 
danger of a tie, decreed that La Montagne should 
have but one vote and he himself two. He then 
filled the different local offices with his own flatter- 
ers and sycophants, and proceeded to govern by 
a series of edicts, which were posted on the trees, 
bams, and fences; some of them, such as those 
forbidding the sale of firearms and gunpowder to 
the Indians, were good; while great discontent 
was excited by others, such as the sumptuary laws 
(for he made a bold attempt to stop the drinking 
and carousing of the mirth-loving settlers), the 
establishing of a passport system, and the inter- 
ference with private affairs by settling when people 
should go to bed, laborers go to work, and the like. 
The Dutch were essentially free and liberty loving, 
and accustomed to considerable self-government; 
and the Manhattan colonists felt that they were 



The Dutch Town 25 

unjustly discriminated against, and chafed under 
the petty tyranny to which they were exposed. 

However, under Kieft the appearance of the 
town was much improved. Streets began to be 
laid out, and a better class of private houses sprang 
up, while a new church and the first tavern — a 
great cliimsy inn, the property of the company — 
were built, and the farms made good progress, 
fi*uit-trees being planted and fine cattle imported. 
New settlements were made on the banks of the 
Hudson and the Sound, on Staten Island, and on 
what is now the Jersey shore. The company 
made great efforts further to encourage immi- 
gration, allowing many privileges to the poorer 
class of immigrants, and continuing, in diminished 
form, some of the exceptional advantages granted 
to the rich men who should form small colonies. 
The colonists received the right to manufacture, 
hitherto denied them; but, unfortunately, the 
hereditary privileges of the patroons were con- 
tinued, including their right of feudal jurisdiction, 
and the exclusive right to hunt, fish, fowl, and 
grind com on their vast estates. The leader in 
pushing these new settlements, and one of the 
most attractive figures in our early colonial his- 
tory, was the Patroon de Vries, a handsome, gal- 
lant, adventurous man, of brave and generous 
nature. He was greatly beloved by the Indians, 
to whom he was always both firm and kind ; and 



26 New York 

the settlers likewise loved and respected him, for 
he never trespassed on their rights, and was their 
leader in every work of danger, whether ia 
exploring strange coasts or in fronting human foes. 

Besides the Dutch immigrants, many others of 
different nationalities came in, particularly Eng- 
lish from the New England colonies; and all, 
•upon taking the oath of allegiance, were treated 
exactly alike. There was almost complete relig- 
ious toleration, and hence many Baptists and 
Quakers took refuge among the Hollanders, fleeing 
from the persecutions of the Puritans. 

All this time there was continual squabbling 
with the neighboring and rival settlements of 
European powers. A large body of Swedes, under 
Minuit, arrived at and claimed the ownership of 
the mouth of the Delaware, bidding defiance to the 
threats the Dutch made that they would oust 
them ; while the English, in spite of many protests, 
took final possession of the Connecticut valley and 
the eastern half of Long Island. But the distin- 
guishing feature of Kieft's administration was 
the succession of bloody Indian struggles waged 
between 1640 and 1645. 

For these wars Kieft himself was mainly re- 
sponsible, though the settlers and savages were 
already irritated with each other. Occasional 
murders and outrages were committed by each 
side. The Indians became alarmed at the increase 



The Dutch Town 27 

in numbers of the whites, and the whites became 
tired of having a horde of lazy, filthy, cruel beg- 
gars always crowding into their houses, killing 
their cattle, and by their very presence threatening 
their families. A strong and discreet man might 
have preserved peace ; but Kieft was rash, cruel, 
and irresolute, and precipitated the contest by 
ordering a brutal vengeance to be taken on the 
Raritan tribe for a wrong which they probably 
had not committed. They of course retaliated in 
kind, and there followed a series of struggles, 
separated by short periods of patched-up truce. 
Kieft took care to keep shut up in the fort, away 
from all possible harm, whereat the settlers mur- 
mured greatly. All their wisest and best men, 
including the Patroon de Vries, the councilman 
La Montagne, and Dominie Bogardus, protested 
against his course in bringing on the war. 

Early in 1643, he caused by his orders, one of 
the most horrible massacres by which our annals 
have ever been disgraced. The dreaded Mohawks 
had made a sudden foray on the River Indians, 
who, like the other neighboring tribes, were Algon- 
quins; and the latter, fleeing in terror from their 
adversaries, took refuge close to the wooden walls 
of New Amsterdam, where they were at first 
kindly received. On Shrovetide night, Kieft, with 
a hideous and almost inconceivable barbarity and 
treachery, as short-sighted as it was cowardly, 



28 New York 

caused bodies of troops to fall on two parties of 
these helpless and unsuspecting fugitives, and 
butchered over a hundred. 

This inhuman outrage at once roused every 
Indian to take a terrible vengeance, and to wipe 
out his wrongs in fire and blood. All the tribes 
fell on the Dutch at once, and in a short time 
destroyed every outlying farm and all the smaller 
settlements, bringing ruin and desolation upon 
the entire province, while the surviving settlers 
gathered in New Amsterdam and in a few of the 
best fortified smaller villages. The Indians put 
their prisoners to death with dreadful tortures, 
and in at least one instance the Dutch retaliated 
in kind. Neither side spared the women and 
children. The hemmed-in Dutch sent bands of 
their soldiers, assisted by parties of New England 
mercenaries, under a famous woodland fighter, 
Capt. John Underbill, against the Indian towns. 
They were enabled to strike crippling blows at 
their enemies, because the latter foolishly clung 
to their stockaded villages, where the whites could 
surround them, keep them from breaking out by 
means of their superiority in firearms, and then 
set the wooden huts aflame and mercilessly de- 
stroy, with torch or bullet, all the inmates, some- 
times to the number of several hundred souls. 
These Indian stockades offered the best means of 
defense against rival savages; but they were no 



The Dutch Town 29 

protection against the whites, who, on the other 
hand, were much inferior to the red men in battle 
in the open forest. At first the Indians did not 
understand this ; and in their ignorance they per- 
sisted in fighting their new foes in the very way 
that gave the latter most advantage. It was in 
consequence of this that the seventeenth-century 
Algonquins suffered not a few slaughtering defeats 
at the hands of the New Englanders and New 
Netherlanders. 

Finally, crippled and exhausted, both sides were 
glad to make peace ; and the whites again spread 
out to their ruined farms. In his dire need Kieft 
had summoned a popular meeting and chosen 
from among the heads of families a council of 
twelve men to advise him in the war. This popu- 
lar meeting was the first of its kind ever held on 
Manhattan, and may be considered as the first 
foreshadowing of our whole present system of 
popular government. The Council of Twelve at 
once proceeded to protest against the director's 
arbitrary powers, and to demand increased rights 
for the people, and a larger measure of self-govern- 
ment. Instantly Kieft dissolved them ; but later 
on, when the settlement seemed at the last gasp, 
a council of eight was chosen, this time by popular 
vote, and took advantage of the dread of the 
public enemy to demand the needed internal 
reforms. They protested in every way against 



30 New York 

Kieft's tyranny. The latter would not yield. 
The mutinous spirit became very strong ; disorder, 
and even murder took place, and affairs began to 
drift toward anarchy. Numerous petitions were 
sent to Holland asking Kieft's removal, and finally 
this was granted. The harassed colony was given 
a new director in the shape of a gallant soldier 
named Peter Stuyvesant, who arrived and took 
possession of his office in May, 1647. 



CHAPTER III. 

STUYVESANT AND THE END OF DUTCH RULE, 
1647-1664. 

GRIM old Stuyvesant had lost a leg in the 
wars. He wore in its place a wooden one, 
laced with silver bands, — so that some tra- 
ditions speak of it as silver. No other figure of 
Dutch, nor indeed of colonial days, is so well re- 
membered ; none other has left so deep an impress 
on Manhattan history and tradition as this whim- 
sical and obstinate, but brave and gallant old 
fellow, the kindly tyrant of the little colony. To 
this day he stands in a certain sense as the typical 
father of the city. 

There are not a few old New Yorkers who 
half-humorously pretend still to believe the 
story which their forefathers handed down from 
generation to generation, — the story that the 
ghost of Peter Stu3Avesant, the queer, kindly, 
self-willed old dictator, still haunts the city he 
bulHed and loved and sought to guard, and at 
night stumps to and fro, with a shadowy wooden 
leg, through the aisles of St. Mark's Church, near 
the spot where his bones lie buried. 

Stuyvesant was a man of strong character, 
whose personality impressed all with whom he 

31 



32 New York 

came in contact. In many ways he stood as a 
good representative of his class, — the well-bom 
commercial aristocracy of Holland. In his own 
person he illustrated, only with marked and indi- 
vidual emphasis, the strong and the weak sides of 
the rich traders, who knew how to fight and rule, 
who feared God and loved liberty, who held their 
heads high and sought to do justice according to 
their lights ; but whose lights were often dim, and 
whose understandings were often harsh and nar- 
row. He was powerfully built, with haughty, 
clear-cut features and dark complexion; and he 
always dressed with scrupulous care, in the rich 
costume then worn by the highest people in his 
native land. He had proved his courage on more 
than one stricken field ; and he knew how to show 
both tact and firmness in dealing with his foes. 
But he was far less successful in dealing with his 
friends; and his imperious nature better fitted 
him to command a garrison than to rule over a 
settlement of Dutch freemen. It was inevitable 
that a man of his nature, who wished to act justly, 
but who was testy, passionate, and full of preju- 
dices, should arouse much dislike and resentment 
in the breasts of the men over whom he held sway ; 
and these feelings were greatly intensified by his 
invariabl}^ acting on the assumption that he knew 
best about their interests, and had absolute au- 
thority to decide upon them He always pro- 



End of Dutch Rule 33 

ceeded on the theory that it was harmful to allow 
the colonists any real measure of self-government, 
and that what was given them was given as a 
matter of grace, not as an act of right. Hence, 
though he was a just man, of sternly upright 
character, he utterly failed to awaken in the 
hearts of the settlers any real loyalty to himself 
or to the government he represented; and they 
felt no desire to stand by him when he needed 
their help. He showed his temper in the first 
speech he made to the citizens, when he addressed 
them in the tone of an absolute ruler, and assured 
them that he would govern them "as a father 
does his children." Colonists from a land with 
traditions of freedom, put down in the midst of 
surroundings which quicken and strengthen be- 
yond measure every impulse they may have in the 
direction of liberty, are of all human beings those 
least fitted to appreciate the benefits of even the 
best of paternal governments. 

When Stuyvesant came to Manhattan the little 
Dutch dorp thereon was just recovering from the 
bloody misery of the Indian wars. No such 
calamities occurred again to check and blast its 
growth ; and it may be said to have then fairly 
passed out of the mere pioneer stage. It was 
under Stuyvesant that New Amsterdam became 
a firmly established Dutch colonial town, instead 
of an Indian-harried village outpost of civilization ; 
3 



34 New York 

and it was only in his time that the Dutch life took 
on fixed and definite shape. The first comers 
were generally poor adventurers ; but when it was 
plainly seen that the colony was to be permanent, 
many well-to-do people of good family came over, 
— burghers who were proud of their coats-of-arms, 
and traced their lineage to the great worthies of 
the ancient Netherlands. The Dutch formed the 
ruling and the most numerous class of inhabitants ; 
but then, as now, the population of the city was 
very mixed. A great many English, both from 
old and New England, had come in; while the 
French Huguenots were still more plentiful, — 
and, it may be mentioned parenthetically, formed, 
as everywhere else in America, without exception 
the most valuable of all the immigrants. There 
were numbers of Walloons, not a few Germans, 
and representatives of so many other nations that 
no less than eighteen different languages and dia- 
lects were spoken in the streets. An ominous 
feature was the abundance of negro slaves, — 
uncouth and brutal-looking black savages, brought 
by slave-traders and pirates from the gold coast of 
Africa. 

The population was diverse in more ways than 
those of speech and race. The Europeans who 
came to this city during its first forty years of life 
represented almost every grade of old-world 
society. Many of these pioneers were men of as 



End of Dutch Rule 35 

high character and standing as ever took part in 
founding a new settlement ; but on the other hand 
there were plenty of others to the full as vicious 
and worthless as the worst immigrants who have 
come hither during the present century. Many 
imported bond-servants and apprentices, both 
English and Irish, of criminal or semi-criminal 
tendencies escaped to Manhattan from Virginia 
and New England, and, once here, found congenial 
associates from half the countries of continental 
Europe. There thus existed from the start a low, 
shiftless, evil class of whites in our population; 
while even beneath their squalid ranks lay the 
herd of brutalized black slaves. It may be ques- 
tioned whether seventeenth-century New Am- 
sterdam did not include quite as large a proportion 
of undesirable inhabitants as nineteenth-century 
New York. 

The sharp and strong contrasts in social po- 
sition, the great differences in moral and material 
well-being, and the variety in race, language, and 
religion, all combined to make a deep chasm be- 
tween life in New Amsterdam and life in the cities 
of New England, with their orderly uniformity of 
condition and their theocratic democracy. 

Society in the New Netherlands was distinctly 
aristocratic. The highest rank was composed of 
the great patroons, with their feudal privileges 
and vast landed estates; next in order came the 



36 New York 

well-to-do merchant burghers of the town, whose 
ships went to Europe and Africa, carrying in their 
holds now furs or rum, now ivory or slaves ; then 
came the great bulk of the population, — thrifty 
souls of small means, who worked hard, and strove 
more or less successfully to live up to the law; 
while last of all came the shifting and intermingled 
strata of the evil and the weak, — the men of 
incurably immoral propensities, and the poor 
whose poverty was chronic. Life in a new coun- 
try is hard, and puts a heavy strain on the wicked 
and the incompetent; but it offers a fair chance 
to all comers, and in the end those who deserve 
success are certain to succeed. 

It was under Stuyvesant, in 1653, that the town 
was formally incorporated as a city, with its own 
local schout and its schepens and burgomasters 
whose powers and duties answered roughly to 
those of both aldermen and justices. The schouts, 
schepens, and burgomasters together formed the 
legislative council of the city ; and they also acted 
as judges, and saw to the execution of the laws. 
There was an advisory council as well. 

The struggling days of pioneer squalor were 
over, and New Amsterdam had taken on the look 
of a quaint little Dutch seaport town, with a touch 
of picturesqueness from its wild surroundings. 
As there was ever menace of attack, not only by 
the savages but by the New Englanders, the city 



End of Dutch Rule 37 

needed a barrier for defense on the landward side ; 
and so, on the present site of Wall Street, a high, 
strong stockade of upright timbers, with occa- 
sional blockhouses as bastions, stretched across the 
island. Where Canal Street now is, the settlers had 
dug a canal to connect the marshes on either side 
of the neck. There were many clear pools and 
rivulets of water ; on the banks of one of them the 
girls were wont to spread the house linen they had 
washed, and the path by which they walked 
thither gave its name to the street that is yet 
called Maiden Lane. Manhattan Island was still, 
for the most part, a tangled wilderness. The 
wolves wrought such havoc among the cattle, as 
they grazed loose in the woods, that a special 
reward was given for their scalps, if taken on 
the island. 

The hall of justice was in the stadt-huys, a great 
stone building, before which stood the high gal- 
lows whereon malefactors were executed. Stuy- 
vesant's own roomy and picturesque house was 
likewise of stone, and was known far and near as 
the Whitehall, finally giving its name to the street 
on which it stood. The poorest people lived in 
huts on the outskirts; but the houses that lined 
the streets of the town itself were of neat and 
respectable appearance, being made of wood, their 
gable ends checkered with little black and yellow 
bricks, their roofs covered with tiles or shingles 



38 New York 

and surmounted by weather-cocks, and the doors 
adorned with burnished brass knockers. The 
shops, wherein were sold not only groceries, hard- 
ware, and the like, but also every kind of rich stuff 
brought from the wealthy cities of Holland, occu- 
pied generally the ground floors of the houses. 
There was a large, bare church, a good public- 
school house, and a great tavern, with neatly 
sanded floor, and heavy chairs and tables, the beds 
being made in cupboards in the thick walls ; and 
here and there windmills thrust their arms into 
the air, while the half -moon of wharves jutted out 
into the river. 

The houses of the rich were quaint and com- 
fortable, with steeply sloping roofs and crow-step 
gables. A wide hall led through the middle, from 
door to door, with rooms on either side. Every- 
thing was solid and substantial, from the huge, 
canopied, four-post bedstead and the cimibrous 
cabinets, chairs, tables, stools, and settees, to the 
stores of massive silver plate, each piece a rich 
heirloom, engraved with the coat of arms of the 
owner. There were rugs on the floors, and cur- 
tains and leather hangings on the walls ; and there 
were tall eight-day clocks, and stiff ancestral 
portraits. Clumsy carriages, and fat geldings to 
draw them, stood in a few of the stables ; and the 
trim gardens were filled with shrubbery, fruit- 
trees, and a wealth of flowers, laid out in prim 



Wall Street from Trinity Church. 






i '■ 


^■^ 


I1j 


^ 









End of Dutch Rule 39 

sweet-smelling beds, divided by neatly kept paths. 
The poorer people were clad, — the men in 
blouses or in jackets, and in wide, baggy breeches ; 
the women in bodices and short skirts. The 
schepens and other functionaries wore their black 
gowns of office. The gentry wore the same rich 
raiment as did their brethren of the Old World. 
Both ladies and gentlemen had clothes of every 
stuff and color ; the former, with their hair frizzed 
and powdered, and their persons bedecked with 
jewelry, their gowns open in front to show the rich 
petticoats, their feet thrust into high-heeled shoes, 
and with silk hoods instead of bonnets. The long 
coats of the gentlemen were finished with silver 
lace and silver buttons, as were their velvet doub- 
lets, and they wore knee-breeches, black silk 
stockings, and low shoes with silver buckles. 
They were fond of free and joyous living; they 
caroused often, drinking deeply and eating heav- 
ily ; and the young men and maidens loved danc- 
ing parties, picnics, and long sleigh rides in winter. 
There were great festivals, as at Christmas and 
New Year's. On the latter day every man called 
on all his friends; and the former was then, as 
now, the chief day of the year for the children, 
devoted to the special service of Santa Claus. 

All through Stuyvesant's time there was con- 
stant danger of trouble with the Indians. Men 
were occasionally killed on both sides; and once 



40 New York 

a burgher was slain in the streets of the town by a 
party of red warriors. There were even one or 
two ferocious local uprisings. By a mixture of 
tact and firmness, however, Stuyvesant kept the 
savages under partial control, checked the brutal 
and outrage-loving portion of his own people, and 
prevented any important or far-reaching out- 
break. Yet he found it necessary to organize 
more than one campaign against the red men ; and 
these, though barren of exciting incident, were 
invariably successful, thanks to his indomitable 
energy. By the exercise of similar qualities, he 
also kept the ever-encroaching New Englanders at 
bay; while in 1655 he finished the long bickerings 
with the Swedes at the mouth of the Delaware by 
marching a large force thither, capturing their 
forts, and definitely taking possession of the coun- 
try, — thereby putting an end to all chance for the 
establishment of a Scandinavian State on Ameri- 
can soil. Once the New Englanders on Long 
Island began to plan a revolt; but he promptly 
seized their ringleaders, — including the Indian 
fighter. Underbill, — fined, imprisoned, or ban- 
ished them, and secured temporary tranquillity. 

From the outset, Stuyvesant 's imperious nature 
kept him embroiled with the colonists. In some 
respects this was well for the commonwealth, for 
in this way he finally curbed the feudal insolence 
of the patroons, after nearly coming to a civil war 



End of Dutch Rule 41 

with the patroon of Rensselaerswyck ; but gener- 
ally he managed merely to harass and worry the 
settlers until they became so irritated as to be 
almost mutinous. He struggled hard, not only to 
retain his own power as dictator, but to establish 
an aristocratic framework for the young society. 
With this end in view, he endeavored to introduce 
as a permanent feature the division of the burgh- 
ers into two classes, minor and major, — the major 
burghers' rights being hereditary, and giving 
many privileges, among others the sole right to 
hold office. He failed ignominiously in this, for 
the democratic instincts of the people, and the 
democratic tendencies of their surroundings, 
proved too strong for him. He himself strove 
to be just toward all men; but he chose his per- 
sonal representatives and agents without paying 
the least heed to the popular estimate in which 
they were held. In consequence, some of those 
most obsequious to him turned out mere profligate, 
petty tyrants, to whom, nevertheless, he clung 
obstinately, in spite of all complaints, until they 
had thoroughly disgusted the people at large. 
He threw his political opponents into jail without 
trial, or banished them after a trial in which he 
himself sat as the judge, announcing that he 
deemed it treason to complain of the chief magis- 
trate, whether with or without cause; and this 
naturally threw into a perfect ferment the citi- 



42 New York 

zens of the popular party, who were striving for 
more freedom with an obstinacy as great as his 
own. Abandoning the policy of complete reli- 
gious toleration, he not only persecuted the 
Baptists and Quakers, but even the Lutherans 
also. He established impost and excise duties 
by proclamation, drawing forth a most deter- 
mined popular protest against taxation without 
representation. When the city charter was 
granted, he proceeded to appoint the first schout, 
schepen, and burgomasters who took office imder 
it, instead of allowing them to be elected by the 
citizens, — though this concession was afterward 
wrung from him. He was in perpetual conflict 
with the council, — the ' 'Nine Men," as they were 
termed, — who stood up stoutly for the popular 
rights, and sent memorial after memorial to Hol- 
land, protesting against the course that was being 
pursued. The inhabitants also joined in public 
meetings, and in other popular manifestations, to 
denounce the author of their grievances; the 
Dutch settlers, for the nonce, making common 
cause with their turbulent New England neighbors 
of the city and of Long Island. Stuyvesant him- 
self sent counter protests ; and also made repeated 
demands for more men and more money, that he 
might put into good condition the crumbling and 
ill-manned fortifications, which, as he wrote home, 
would be of no avail at all to resist any strong 



End of Dutch Rule 43 

attack that might be made by the ever-threaten- 
ing English. But the home government cared for 
its colonies mainly because they were profitable. 
This Stuyvesant's province was not; and so, with 
dull apathy, the appeals for help w^ere disregarded, 
and the director and the colonists were left to 
settle their quarrels as best they might. 

Thus, with ceaseless wrangling, with much of 
petty tyranny on the one hand, and much of sullen 
grumbling and discontent on the other, the years 
went by. Stuy\^esant rarely did serious injustice 
to any particular man, and by his energy, reso- 
lution, and executive capacity he preserved order 
at home, while the colony grew and prospered as 
it never had done before; but the sturdy and 
resolute, though somewhat heavy, freemen over 
whom he ruled, resented bitterly all his overbear- 
ing ways and his deeds of small oppression, and 
felt only a lukewarm loyalty to a government that 
evidently deemed them valuable only in so far as 
they added to the wealth of the men who had 
stayed at home. When the hour of trial came, 
they naturally showed an almost apathetic indif- 
ference to the overthrow of the rule of Holland. 

Whenever the English and Dutch were at 
war. New Amsterdam was in a flutter over the 
always-dreaded attack of some English squadron. 
At last, in 1664, the blow really fell. There was 
peace at the time between the two nations; but 



44 New York 

this fact did not deter the England of the Stuarts 
from seizing so helpless a prize as the province of 
the New Netherlands. The English Government 
knew well how defenseless the country was; and 
the king and his ministers determined to take it 
by a sudden stroke of perfectly cold-blooded 
treachery, making all their preparations in secret 
and meanwhile doing everything they could to 
deceive the friendly power at which the blow was 
aimed. Stuyvesant had continued without ces- 
sation to beseech the home government that he 
might be given the means to defend the province ; 
but his appeals were unheeded by his profit-loving, 
money-getting superiors in Holland. He was left 
with insignificant defenses, guarded by an utterly 
insufficient force of troops. The unblushing 
treachery and deceit by which the English took 
the city made the victory of small credit to them ; 
but the Dutch, by their supine, short-sighted 
selfishness and greed, were put in an even less 
enviable light. 

In September, 1664, three or four English frig- 
ates, and a force of several hundred land-troops 
imder Col. Richard Nicolls suddenly appeared in 
the harbor. They were speedily joined by the 
levies of the already insurgent New Englanders of 
Long Island. Nicolls had an overpowering force, 
and was known to be a man of decision. He 
forthwith demanded the immediate surrender of 






End of Dutch Rule 45 

the city and province. Stuyvesant wished to fight 
even against such odds; but the citizens refused 
to stand by him, and New Amsterdam passed into 
the hands of the EngHsh without a gun being fired 
in its defense. 



CHAPTER IV. 

NEW AMSTERDAM BECOMES NEW YORK. THE BE- 
GINNING OF ENGLISH RULE. 1664-1674. 

THE expedition against New Amsterdam 
had been organized with the Duke of 
York, afterward King James II., as its 
special patron, and the city was rechristened in 
his honor. To this day its name perpetuates the 
memory of the dull, cruel bigot with whose short 
reign came to a close the ignoble line of the Stuart 
kings. 

With Manhattan Island all the province of the 
New Netherlands passed under the English rule ; 
and the arrogant red flag fluttered without a rival 
along the whole seaboard from Acadia to Florida. 
Yet the settlements were still merely little dots in 
the vast wooded wilderness which covered all the 
known portions of the continent. They were 
strung at wide intervals along the seacoast, or 
the courses of the mighty rivers, separated one 
from another by the endless stretches of gloomy, 
Indian-haunted woodland. Every step in the 
forest was fraught with danger. The farms still 
lay close to the scattered hamlets, and the latter 
in turn clung to the edges of the navigable waters, 
where travel was so much easier and safer than on 

46 



Beginning of English Rule 47 

land. New Amsterdam, when its existence as such 
ceased, held some fifteen hundred souls (many 
of them negro slaves) ; yet the sloops that plied 
from thence to Fort Orange, — now Albany, — or to 
any other of the small river towns, were obliged 
to go well armed, and to keep a keen watch night 
and day for the war-canoes of hostile Indians. 

The conquered province had been patented to 
the Duke of York, and Nicolls acted as his agent. 
The latter was a brave, politic man of generous 
nature and good character, and he executed well 
the difficult task allotted him, doing his best to 
conciliate the colonists by the justice and consid- 
eration with which he acted, and at the same time 
showing that timidity had no share in influencing 
his course. By the terms of the surrender the 
Dutch settlers were guaranteed their full civil and 
religious rights, and as a matter of fact they were 
gainers rather than losers by the change. Their 
interests were as carefully guarded as were those 
of the EngHsh settlers, their prejudices were not 
shocked, and if anything they were allowed greater, 
rather than less privileges in the way of self- 
government. Moreover, it must be remembered 
that the change was not so violent as if a city 
peopled exclusively by one race had been suddenly 
conquered by the members of another. Under 
Dutch rule all foreigners had been freely natural- 
ized, and had been allowed to do their share of 



48 New York 

administration, — for our city has always allowed 
every privilege to that portion of her citizens 
(generally the majority) bom without her limits. 
The Dutch element was largest among the wealthy 
people, to whom fell the duty of exercising such 
self-government as there was ; but there were also 
plenty of rich men among the French Huguenots 
and English settlers. It is probable that at least 
a third of the population, exclusive of the nume- 
rous negro slaves, and inclusive of the Huguenots 
was neither Dutch nor English ; and to this third 
the change was of Httle moment. The English 
had exercised considerable influence in the gov- 
ernment throughout Stuyvesant's rule, and even 
before, ranking as third in numbers and impor- 
tance among the various elements of the composite 
population; while on the other hand the Dutch 
continued, even after the surrender, to have a 
very great and often a preponderant weight in the 
councils of the city. The change was merely that, 
in a population composed of several distinct ele- 
ments, the one which had hitherto been of primary 
became on the whole of secondary importance; 
its place in the lead being usurped by another 
element, which itself had already for many years 
occupied a position of much prominence. There 
was of course a good deal of race-prejudice and 
rancor; and the stubborn Dutch clung to their 
language, though with steadily loosening grasp. 



Beginning of English Rule 49 

for over a century. But the lines of cleavage in 
the political contests did not follow those of speech 
and blood. The constitution of the Dutch settle- 
ment was essentially aristocratic; and the party 
of the populace was naturally opposed to the party 
of the patroons and the rich merchants. The 
settlers who came from England direct, belonged 
to the essentially aristocratic Established Church. 
They furnished many of the great officials; and 
many of the merchants, and of those who became 
large landowners, sprang from among them. 
These naturally joined the aristocratic section 
of the original settlers. On the other hand the 
New Englanders, who were of Puritan blood, — 
and later on the Presbyterians of Scotland and 
Ireland, — were the stanchest opponents of Epis- 
copacy and aristocracy, and became the leaders 
of the popular party. Similarly, the Huguenots 
and the settlers of other nationality separated 
(though much less sharply) on Hnes of prop- 
erty and caste; and hence the fluctuating line 
which divided the two camps or factions was only 
secondarily influenced by considerations of speech 
and nationality. 

Nicolls made the necessary changes with cau- 
tious slowness and tact. For nearly a year the 
city was suffered to retain its old form of govern- 
ment; then the schout, schepens, and burgo- 
masters were changed for sheriff, aldermen 
4 



50 New York 

mayor, and justices. Vested rights were inter- 
fered with as Httle as possible ; the patroons were 
turned into manorial lords; the Dutch and Hu- 
guenots were allowed the free exercise of their 
rehgion; indeed, the feeling was so friendly that 
for some time the AngHcan service was held in the 
Dutch Church in the afternoons. No attempt 
was made to interfere with the language or with 
the social and business customs and relations of 
the citizens. Nicolls showed himself far more 
liberal than Stu>^^esant in questions of creed; 
and one of the first things he did was to allow^ the 
Lutherans to build a church and install therein 
a pastor of their own. He established a fairly 
good system of justice, including trial by jury, 
and practically granted the citizens a considerable 
measure of self-government. But the fact re- 
mained that the colony had not gained its freedom 
by changing its condition; it had simply ex- 
changed the nile of a company for the rule of a 
duke. Xicolls himself nominated all the new 
officers of the city (choosing them from among 
both the Dutch and the EngHsh), and retiiming 
a poHte but firm negative to the request of the 
citizens that they might themselves elect their 
representatives. He pursued the same course 
with the Puritan Long Islanders; and the latter 
resented his action even more bitterly than did 
the Dutch. 



Beginning of English Rule 51 

However, his tact, generosity, and unfailing 
good temper, and the skill with which he kept 
order and secured prosperity endeared him to the 
colonists, even though they did at times just real- 
ize that there was an iron hand beneath the velvet 
glove. He completely pacified the Indians, who 
during his term of command remained almost 
absolutely tranquil, for the first time in a quarter 
of a centur}-. He put do\\Ti all criminals, and 
sternly repressed the Hcentiousness of his 0"^-n 
soldier}^ forcing them to behave well to the citi- 
zens. His honesty in financial matters was so 
great that he actually impoverished himself during 
his administration of the province. Meanwhile, 
the city flourished ; for there was free trade with 
England and the EngHsh possessions, and even 
for some time a restricted right to trade with 
certain of the Dutch ports. 

Xicolls soon wearied of his position, and sought 
leave to resign ; but he was too valuable a servant 
for the duke to permit this until the war with 
Holland, which had been largely brought on by 
the treacherous seizure of New Amsterdam, at 
length came to a close. The Peace of Breda left 
New York in the hands of the English; for the 
cold northern province, where now are States 
already far more populous than Holland, or than 
the England of that day, was then considered of 
less value than any one of half a dozen tropica] 



52 New York 

colonies. On both sides the combatants warred 
for the purpose of getting possessions which should 
benefit their own pockets, not to found States of 
free men of their own race ; they sought to estab- 
lish trading-posts from whence to bring spices and 
jewels and precious metals, rather than to plant 
commonwealths of their children on the continents 
that were waiting to be conquered. The English 
were inclined to grumble, and the Dutch to 
rejoice, because the former received New York 
rather than Surinam. As for Nicolls, when his 
hands were thus freed he returned home, having 
shown himself a warm friend to the colonists, 
especially the Dutch, who greatly mourned his 
going. 

His successor was an archetypical cavalier 
named Francis Lovelace. He had stood loyally 
by the king in disaster and prosperity alike, and 
was a gallant, generous, and honest gentleman; 
but he possessed far less executive capacity than 
his predecessor. However, he trod in the foot- 
steps of the latter so far as he could, and strove 
to advance the interests of the city in every way, 
and to conciliate the good-will of the inhabitants. 
He associated on intimate terms with the leading 
citizens, whether English, French, or Dutch, and 
established a social club which met at their dif- 
ferent houses, — all three languages being spoken 
at the meetings. Being fond of racing, he gave 



Beginning of English Rule 53 

prizes to be run for by swift horses on the Long 
Island race-course. Like his predecessor, his 
chief troubles were with the hard-headed and 
stiff-necked children of the Puritans on Long 
Island. When he attempted to tax them to build 
up the fort on Manhattan, they stoutly refused, 
and sent him an indignant protest; while on the 
other hand he was warmly supported by his Dutch 
and English councilors in New York. With the 
Indians he kept on good terms. 

The city prospered under Lovelace as it had 
prospered under Nicolls. Its proprietor, the 
Duke of York, was a mean and foolish tyrant ; but 
it was for his interest while he was not king to 
treat his colony well. Though an intolerant reli- 
gious bigot, he yet became perforce an advocate 
of religious tolerance for New York, because his 
own creed, Roman Catholicism, was weak, and 
the hope of the feeble never rests in persecution. 
New York was thus permitted to grow in peace, 
and to take advantage of her great natural 
resources. Trade increased and ships were built ; 
while in addition to commerce, many of the sea- 
faring folk took to the cod and whale fisheries, 
which had just been started off the coasts. The 
whales were very plentiful, and indeed several 
were killed in the harbor itself. The merchants 
began to hold weekly meetings, thus laying the 
foimdation for the New York Exchange; and 



54 New York 

wealth increased among all classes, bringing com- 
fort, and even some attempt at luxury, in its train. 

This quick and steady growth in material pros- 
perity was rudely checked by the fierce war which 
again broke out between England and Holland. 
Commerce was nearly paralyzed by the depre- 
dations of the privateers, and many of the mer- 
chants were brought to the verge of bankruptcy, 
while the public distress was widespread. It was 
known that the Dutch meditated an effort to 
recapture the city; and Lovelace made what 
preparations he could for defense. He busied 
himself greatly to establish a regular mail to 
Boston and Hartford, so that there might be 
overland communication with his eastern neigh- 
bors; and it was on one of his absences in New 
England that the city was recaptured by its 
former owners. 

In July, 1673, a Dutch squadron under two 
grim old sea-dogs. Admirals Evertsen and Binckes, 
suddenly appeared in the lower bay. The English 
commander in the fort endeavored to treat with 
them; but they would hearken to no terms save 
immediate surrender, saying that * 'they had come 
for their own, and their own they would have." 
The Dutch militia would not fight against their 
countrymen; and the other citizens were not 
inclined to run any risk in a contest that concerned 
them but little. Evertsen' s frigates sailed up to 



Beginning of English Rule 55 

within musket-shot of the fort, and firing began 
on both sides. After receiving a couple of broad- 
sides which killed and wounded several of the 
garrison, the English flag was struck, and the fort 
was surrendered to the Dutch troops, who had 
already landed, under the command of Capt. 
Anthony Colve. So ended the first nine years of 
English supremacy at the mouth of the Hudson. 

The victors at once proceeded to undo the work 
of the men they had ousted. Dutch was once 
more made the formal official language (though 
it had never been completely abandoned), and 
the whole scheme of the English government was 
overturned. In the city itself the schepens, bur- 
gomasters, and schout again took the place of 
sheriff, mayor, and aldermen. There was very 
little violence, although one or two houses were 
plundered, and a citizen here and there insulted 
or slightly maltreated by the soldiers, — much as 
had happened after the original conquest, with the 
important exception that it was now the Dutch 
who did the maltreating, and the English who 
were the sufferers. 

When the province was lost it was a mere pro- 
prietary colony of the West India Company ; but 
this corporation had died prior to 1673, and the 
province was regained by the victory of a natio'nal 
Dutch force, and was held for the whole nation. 
Evertsen, acting for the home government, made 






56 New York 

Colve the director of the province. Colve was a 
rough, imperious, resolute man, a good soldier, 
but with no very great regard for civil liberty. 
The whole province was speedily reduced. The 
Dutch towns along the Hudson submitted gladly ; 
but the Puritan villages on Long Island were sullen 
and showed symptoms of defiance, appealing to 
Connecticut for help. However, Colve and E vert- 
sen, backed up by trained soldiers and a well- 
equipped squadron, were not men to be trifled 
with. They gave notice to the Long Islanders 
that unless they were prepared to stand the 
chances of war they must submit at once; and 
submit they did, Connecticut not daring to inter- 
fere. The New Englanders had been willing 
enough to bid defiance to, and to threaten the 
conquest of, the New Netherlands while the prov- 
ince was weakly held by an insufficient force ; but 
they were too prudent to provoke a contest with 
men of such fighting temper and undoubted 
capacity as Evertsen and Colve, and the war- 
hardened troops and seamen who obeyed their 
behests. 

Colve ruled the internal affairs of the colony 
with a high hand. He made the citizens under- 
stand that the military power was supreme over 
the civil; and when the council protested against 
anything he did, he told them plainly that unless 
they submitted he would summarily dismiss them 



Beginning of English Rule 57 

and appoint others in their places. Military law 
was established, and heavy taxes were imposed; 
moreover, as the taxes took some time to collect, 
those who were most heavily assessed were forced 
to make loans in advance. Altogether the burgh- 
ers probably failed to find that the restoration of 
Dutch rule worked any very marked change in 
their favor. 

This second period of Dutch supremacy on 
Manhattan Island lasted for but a year and a 
quarter. Then in November, 1674, the city was 
again given up to the English in accordance with 
the terms of peace between the belligerent powers, 
which provided for the mutual restitution of all 
conquered territory. With this second transfer 
New Amsterdam definitely assumed the name of 
New York; and the province became simply one 
of the English colonies in America, remaining such 
until, a century afterward, all those colonies com- 
bined to throw off the yoke of the mother country 
and become an independent nation. 

Thus the province of the New Netherlands had 
been first taken by the English by an attack in 
time of peace, when no resistance could be made, 
and had been left in their possession because it 
was deemed of infinitely less consequence than 
such colonies as Java and Surinam; it had then 
been reconquered by the Dutch, in fair and open 
war, and had been again surrendered because of 



58 New York 

an agreement into which the home government 
was forced, owing to the phases which the Euro- 
pean struggle had assumed. The citizens through- 
out these changes played but a secondary part, 
the fate of the city and province being decided, 
not by them, but by the ships and troops of Hol- 
land and England. Nor were the burghers as a 
whole seriously affected in their civil, religious, or 
social liberties by the changes. The Dutch and 
English doubtless suffered in turn from certain 
heartburnings and jealousies, as they alternately 
took the lead in managing the local government; 
but the grievances of the under-party were really 
mainly sentimental, for on the one hand no 
material discrimination was ever actually made 
against either element, and on the other hand the 
ruler for the time being, whether Dutch direcktor 
or English governor, always made both elements 
feel that compared to him they stood on a common 
plane of political inferiority. 

Sir Edmund Andros was appointed by the 
English king as the governor who was to receive 
New York from the hands of Director Colve. This 
he did formally and in state, many courtesies 
being exchanged between the outgoing and 
incoming rulers ; among the rest, Colve presented 
Andros with his own state-coach and the three 
horses that drew it. Andros at once reinstated 
the English form of government in both province 



Beginning of English Rule 59 

and city, and once more, and this time finally, 
made the English the official language. New 
York was still considered as a proprietary colony 
of James ; New Jersey was severed from it, and 
became a distinct province. The city itself, which 
had numbered some fifteen hundred inhabitants 
at the date of the original conquest from the 
Dutch, included about three thousand when 
English rule was for the second time established. 



CHAPTER V. 

NEW YORK UNDER THE STUARTS. 1674-1688. 

ANDROS was a man of ability and energy, 
anxious to serve his master the duke, and 
also anxious to serve the duke's colony, in 
so far as its interests did not clash with those of 
the duke himself. He was of course a devoted 
adherent of the House of Stuart, an ardent Royal- 
ist, and a believer in the divine right of kings, and 
in government by a limited ruling class, not by the 
great mass of the people governed. Yet, in spite 
of his imperious and fiery temper, he strove on the 
whole to do justice to the city of mixed nationali- 
ties over whose destinies he for the time being 
presided, and it throve well under his care. But 
though he tried to rule fairly, he made it distinctly 
understood that he, acting in the name of his over- 
lord the duke, was the real and supreme master. 
The city did not govern itself; for he appointed 
the mayor, aldermen, and other officers. Even 
some of his decrees which worked well for the city 
showed the arbitrary character of his rule, and 
illustrated the vicious system of monopolies and 
class and sectional legislation which then obtained. 
Thus he bestowed on New York the sole right to 
bolt and export floiu:. This trebled her wealth 

60 



Under the Stuarts 6i 

during the sixteen years that elapsed before it was 
repealed, but it of course caused great hardship 
to the inland towns. Unmixed good however 
resulted from his decree putting an end to the 
practice of holding Indians as slaves. 

It might have been expected that after the con- 
quest of New York the incoming English would 
have been divided by party lines from the Dutch, 
and that they would have been in strong alliance 
with their English neighbors to the eastward. 
The extreme Royalist tone of the new government, 
and the anti-Puritan or Episcopal feeling of the 
most influential of the new settlers, were among 
the main causes which prevented either of these 
results from being brought about. The English 
Episcopalians and Royalists hated their sour, 
gloomy, fanatical countrymen of different belief 
much more bitterly than they did their well-to-do 
Dutch neighbors; and the middle-class citizens, 
Dutch and English alike, were boimd together by 
ties of interest and by the stubborn love of liberty 
which was common to both races. 

The high-handed proceedings of Andros roused 
more or less openly avowed ill feeling among the 
poor but independent citizens of all nationalities ; 
and he clashed rather less with the Manhattaners 
than with the Long Islanders. Moreover, under 
his rule New York's attitude as regards the Puri- 
tan commonwealths of New England continued 



62 New York 

as hostile as ever, Andros adopting toward them 
the exact tone of his Dutch predecessors. He 
asserted the right of his colony to all land west of 
the Connecticut. He actually assembled a large 
body of troops wherewith to subdue the New 
England towns on its banks, and only halted when 
it became evident that such a proceeding would 
without fail be desperately resisted, and would 
surely bring on an intercolonial war. 

Andros was certainly true to his master; yet 
James became suspicious of him, and, after he had 
been governor for over six years, suddenly sum- 
moned him home, and sent over a special agent, 
or spy, to examine into the affairs of the colony. 
Early in January, 1681, Andros left for London, 
where he speedily cleared his name of all suspicion, 
and came into high favor once more. New York 
meanwhile was left under the charge of Lieuten- 
ant-Governor Brockholls, a Roman Catholic, and 
of course a high Tory, — an inefficient man, utterly 
unable to cope with the situation. He was ham- 
pered rather than aided by the duke's special 
agents, who bungled everything, and soon became 
the laughing-stock of the population. In conse- 
quence, the province speedily fell into a condition 
not very far removed from anarchy. The traders 
refused to pay customs duties, and Brockholls was 
too timid to try to collect them; and the taxes, 
generally, fell into arrears. Disorderly meetings 



Under the Stuarts 63 

were held in various places, and mob violence was 
threatened, — the Puritan element of course taking 
the lead. Equally of course, and very properly, 
the friends of free government took advantage of 
the confusion to strike a blow for greater liberty. 
When under a despotic rule which nevertheless 
secured order and material prosperity, there was 
small hope of effecting a change ; but the instant 
the tyrant for the time being became weak, there 
was a chance of success in moving against him, 
there being no longer, to the minds of the citizens, 
any substantial offset to atone for his tyranny. Ac- 
cordingly, a New York jury formally presented to 
the court that the lack of a Provincial Assembly 
was a grievance. Popular feeling declared itself 
so strongly to this effect that the court adopted 
the same view. Accordingly, it accepted as its 
own and forwarded to the duke a petition drawn 
up by the high sheriff of Long Island. This peti- 
tion set forth that New York had long groaned 
under the intolerable burden of being subjected to 
an arbitrary and irresponsible government, where- 
by the colonists were forced against their wills to 
pay revenue, while their trade was burdened, and 
they themselves practically enthralled. The doc- 
ument pointed by way of contrast to the freer and 
more flourishing colonies by which New York was 
flanked on either hand, and besought that there- 
after the province should be ruled by a governor, 



64 New York 

council, and assembly, the latter to be elected by 
the colonial freeholders. 

The stoppage of the collections of taxes caused 
the colony to become a drain instead of a source of 
revenue to James ; and the duke seriously consid- 
ered the project of selling such an unproductive 
province. Finally however he decided, as an 
alternative, to grant the wished-for franchise, and 
see if that would improve matters; being, it is 
said, advised to take this course by William Penn 
whose not over-creditable connection with the 
Stuarts occasionally bore good fruit. As the person 
to put his plans into execution and to act as first 
governor under the new system, the duke chose 
Thomas Dongan, a Roman Catholic Irish gentle- 
man of good family, the nephew of the Earl of 
Tyrconnel. Dongan acted with wise liberality 
both in matters political and in matters religious, 
toward the province he was sent to govern; for 
he was a man of high character and good capacity. 
Yet it is impossible to say how much of his liber- 
ality was due to honest conviction, and how much 
to the considerations of expediency that at the 
moment influenced the House of Stuart. It was 
an age of religious intolerance and of government 
by privileged classes; and the religion to which 
Dongan and his royal master adhered was at that 
time, wherever it was dominant, the bitterest foe 
of civil and religious liberty. But in England the 



Under the Stuarts 65 

nation generally was Episcopalian; and Duke 
James, a Catholic, was perforce obliged to advo- 
cate toleration for all sects as a step toward the 
ultimate supremacy of his own. So in New York, 
Dongan the Catholic found himself ruler of a prov- 
ince where there were but a few dozen citizens of 
his own faith, the mass of the people being stanch 
Protestants, of several jarring creeds ; and he was 
not drawn by any special bonds of sympathy to 
the class of crown officials and the like, who were 
mostly of the very church which in England was 
supreme over his own. His interests and sympa- 
thies thus naturally inclined him to side with the 
popular party, and to advocate religious liberty. 
As he was also vigilant in preserving order and 
warding off outside aggression, and devoted to the 
well-being of the colony, he proved himself per- 
haps the best colonial governor New York ever had. 
Dongan reached New York in 1683, and from 
the first was popular with the colonists. He at 
once issued writs for the election of the members 
of the long-desired Provincial Assembly. They 
were elected by the freeholders; and with their 
meeting, in the fall of the same year, the province 
took the first real step, — and a very long one, — 
toward self-government. Dongan of course ap- 
pointed his own council ; and he generally placed 
thereon representatives of the different nationali- 
ties and creeds. New York City was of course the 

5 



66 New York 

governmental seat or capital, as well as the 
metropolis of the province. 

The Assembly, the popular branch of the gov- 
ernment, consisted of eighteen members, the 
majority being Dutch. They promptly passed a 
nimiber of acts, all of which were approved by 
Dongan and his council. By far the most im- 
portant, was the special ' 'charter of Liberties and 
Privileges," granted by the duke to the province. 
By this the right of self -taxation was reserved to 
the colonists, except that certain specific duties on 
importations were allowed to the duke and his 
heirs. The main features of self-government, so 
long and earnestly desired by the people, were also 
secured; and entire liberty of conscience and 
reUgion was guaranteed to all. This charter was 
sent over to the duke, by whose suggestion several 
small amendments were made therein; he then 
signed and sealed but did not deliver it. Thus it 
never formally went into effect; yet the govern- 
ment of New York was carried on under its pro- 
visions for several years. One of the acts of this 
first Assembly was well in line with the policy of 
extreme liberahty toward all foreign-bom citizens 
which New York has always consistently followed: 
it conferred full rights of citizenship upon all white 
foreigners who should take the oath of allegiance. 
The especial purpose of passing the act was to 
Ipenefit the Huguenots, who were being expelled 



f 



Under the Stuarts 67 

from France by tens of thousands, thanks to the 
cruel bigotry of the French king, Louis XIV. 

With the return of order and the dawn of hb- 
erty, the city once more began to flourish. Trade 
increased, the fisheries did well, new buildings 
were put up, and taxes were paid without grum- 
bling. Addresses of gratitude were sent to the 
duke, and the citizens were fervent in their praise 
of Dongan. Even the religious animosities were 
for the moment softened. The old church in the 
fort was used every Sunday by the representatives 
of all three of the leading creeds, the services being 
held in as many different languages, — the Dutch 
in the morning, the French at midday, and the 
English, by the Episcopalians, in the afternoon; 
while Dongan and his few fellow-religionists wor- 
shiped in a little chapel. Even the austere Cal- 
vinist dominies could not refrain from paying their 
meed of respect to the new governor. 

As soon as the Assembly adjourned, Dongan 
granted new ' 'liberties and privileges" to the city 
itself. In accordance with these new articles, the 
aldermen were elected by the freeholders in the 
various wards, the mayor being appointed by the 
governor. The board of aldermen was a real, not 
(as in our day) a nominal, legislative body, and 
enacted by-laws for the government of the city. 
Some of them were of very stringent character; 
notably those which provided against any kind 






68 New York 

of work or amusement on the Sabbath, and which 
forbade all assemblages of the numerous negro 
slaves, — for the slave-holding burghers were 
haunted by the constant terror of a servile in- 
surrection. 

Affairs went on smoothly until the death of 
Charles II. and the accession to the throne of New 
York's ducal proprietor, under the title of James 
II. Dongan made journeys hither and thither 
through his province, pacifying the Indians, and 
seeing to the best interests of his own people. He 
was especially zealous in keeping guard over the 
northern frontier, already threatened by the 
French masters of Canada, so long the arch foes 
of the northeastern EngHsh colonies. Although 
Dongan was a Roman CathoHc, he did not show 
any of that feehng which made some of his co- 
religionists sacrifice coimtry to creed, nor did he 
ever become a tool of France, like so many of the 
Stuart courtiers of his day. On the contrary, he 
was active in thwarting French intrigues in the 
north, giving full warning concerning them to his 
royal master, to whom his active and loyal 
patriotism could hardly have been altogether 
pleasant. 

At any rate, no sooner had the duke become 
king than he dropped the mask of liberality, and 
took up his natural position as a pohtical and re- 
ligious tyrant. Under the influence of Dongan, 



Under the Stuarts 69 

he did indeed grant to the city itself a charter of 
special rights and privileges, which formed the 
basis of those subsequently granted in colonial 
times. The instrument not only confirmed the 
city in the possession of the privileges it already 
possessed, but allowed it a large quantity of real 
estate, from some of which the municipality draws 
a revenue to the present day, while the rest has 
been given over for the common use of the people. 
But on the main point of self-government the king 
was resolved to retrace his steps. He would not 
consummate his action giving a liberal charter to 
the province, and though in 1684 Dongan sum- 
moned the Assembly to meet on his own respon- 
sibility, it was never thereafter called; and New 
York's share in self-government came to an end 
as far as the Stuarts were concerned. 

In 1688 Dongan himself was deprived of the 
control of the province he had ruled so faithfully 
and wisely. The king was bent upon being abso- 
lute master of the colonies no less than of the 
home country; and in the spring of that year he 
threw New England, New York, and New Jersey 
into one province, abolishing all the different 
charters, and putting the colonists imder the 
direct control of the royal governor. Dongan 
was too liberal a man to be entrusted with the 
carrying out of such a policy. Sir Edmund Andros 
was sent over in his stead, to act as the instrument 



11 



70 New York 

for depriving the people of such measure of 
freedom as they possessed. The bitterness of the 
religious feeling of the day may be gathered from 
the fact that many of the more bigoted Protest- 
ants of Manhattan actually welcomed the change 
of governors, being unable to pardon their friend 
because he was not of their creed, and greeting 
their foe warmly because, forsooth, they did not 
quite so widely disagree with his theological tenets. 
However, the mass of the people in both New 
York and New England speedily became welded 
into one in opposition to the absolutism of the 
Stuart king, as typified by his lieutenant. Hol- 
lander and Puritan were knit together by the bond 
of a common hatred to the common oppressor; 
the Puritan as usual taking the lead. They were 
outraged because of the loss of their political 
rights; and they feared greatly lest they should 
soon also lose their religious freedom. Moreover, 
the colonies were already jealous of one another, 
and deeply imbued with the Separatist feeling; 
and they counted the loss of their special charters, 
and the obliteration of their boundary lines that 
they might be put under one government, as griev- 
ances intolerable and not to be borne. Nor did 
they have to bear them long. That very year 
William of Orange landed in England and drove 
the last Stuart king from his throne. The news 
reached America early in 1689, when Andros was 



Under the Stuarts 71 

in Boston, and the New Englanders rose instantly 
and threw him into prison, while his governmental 
fabric throughout the provinces perished almost 
in a day. 

The accession of the Dutch prince to the throne 
of England added another to the forces that were 
tending to make the various ethnic elements of 
New York fuse together. All New Yorkers could 
be loyal to the Dutch prince who wore an English 
crown, and who was their special champion against 
a hostile creed and race. For the next eighty 
years Holland was England's ally, so that the 
Hollanders in America saw nothing at work in 
European politics which should make them un- 
friendly to their English fellow-citizens; and the 
one great enemy of both races was France. Their 
interests and enmities were the same, and were 
also identical with those of the Huguenots, who 
formed the third great element in the population. 
It was this identity of interests and enmities, no 
less than the similarity in religious belief, which 
made it possible for the two races already in the 
land to merge so easily into the third and later- 
coming race. The comparative rapidity of this 
fusion in New York is noteworthy. It stands in 
sharp contrast to the slowness of the intermingling 
where the English or their successors have con- 
quered and moved into commiinities of Catholic 
French and Spaniards. 



72 New York 

From 1689 onward, the antagonisms of race 
were only secondary causes of party and factional 
hostility in New York. The different nationali- 
ties remained far less stubbornly apart than was 
the case in the neighboring colony of Pennsylvania 
for instance. Even when the bulk of one nation- 
ality was found to be opposed to the bulk of an- 
other, the seeming race antagonism was usually 
merely incidental, the real line of division being 
drawn with regard to other matters, such as di- 
vided the aristocratic and popular parties else- 
where. No element of the population kept ob- 
stinately aloof from the rest as did a large section 
of the Pennsylvanian Germans, to their own last- 
ing harm. The different races gradually grew to 
speak the same language, and then intermarried 
and merged together; for in America the inter- 
marriage and fusion of races follows, but does not 
precede, their adoption of a common tongue. The 
Revolution and the preliminary agitation greatly 
hastened this fusion ; but it was already well imder 
way before the first mutterings of the Revolution 
were heard. 



ii 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE USURPATION OF LEISLER, 1689-1691. 

THE overthrow of the Stuart dynasty, and the 
consequent sudden fall of Andros, brought 
about the collapse of the existing govern- 
ment in New York. There followed a period of 
turmoil and disorder, marked by a curious party 
fight and revolution, or rather attempted revo- 
lution, which in its various phases well illustrated 
the peculiar characteristics of New York life. 

The relaxing of the bonds of authority allowed 
the jealousies between the different classes of the 
population to come to a head. The mass of the 
citizens, — the men of small means, who in the best 
of times had enjoyed but little influence in the 
political life of the colony, — were sullenly hostile 
to the aristocratic and conservative class of crown 
officials, patroons, rich merchants, and the like. 
The ferment in men's minds enormously increased 
the activity of the forces that were tending to col- 
lision. After Andros was imprisoned the con- 
servative faction wished to continue in power the 
existing officers, appointed by King James, until 
they could be replaced by others bearing commis- 
sions from King William. The popular party, on 
the other hand, was for immediate action. Their 

73 



74 New York 

leaders were inspired by the course of the New 
England colonies, which had promptly set up their 
former chartered governments. Their proposal 
was to turn out all of the Stuart officials, and to 
put in their places men known to be faithful to the 
new order of things, who should govern until the 
will of the Prince of Orange was known. Of 
course all of the official class and the English 
Episcopalians, as well as the Hollanders and Hu- 
guenots of property, generally took the conserva- 
tive view; the other was adopted by the poor 
people and radical liberals and Protestants, very 
many of the Puritans uniting with the Dutch and 
French Calvinist working men, small traders, 
sailors, and farm laborers. The popular party 
was at first joined by a very large number of re- 
spectable men, well-to-do or of small means, who 
afterward became alienated by the sweeping 
measures of the extremists and by the fickleness 
and violence of the mob. The greater number of 
the citizens whose tongue was French or Dutch 
were in its ranks, while the aristocratic faction 
contained a large share of the English element; 
but the difference was one of caste and instinct, 
not of speech or race. Indeed, the leaders of the 
aristocratic wing, after the lieutenant-governor 
(Nicholson), were the three members of the de- 
posed governor's council. Bayard, Van Cortlandt 
and Phillipse, all of Dutch birth or ancestry. On 



Usurpation of Leisler 75 

the other hand their opponents were led by a 
man named Jacob Leisler, who was strongly sec- 
onded by his son-in-law, one Jacob Milbome. 
New York City, then as now, contained within 
its population many different races only beginning 
to fuse together; and then as now, the lines of 
party were only subordinately affected by the 
lines of race, — each faction possessing represen- 
tatives of all the different elements, while the 
leaders were found, as is still the case, among men 
of diverse origin and nationality. Religious ani- 
mosities, as ever since, had much effect in sharpen- 
ing party differences. 

Leisler was a merchant of property, a deacon in 
the Dutch Reformed Church, and a captain of one 
of the six militia trainbands over which Bayard 
was colonel. He was a zealous Protestant and 
Republican, a fanatical hater of the Roman Cath- 
olic Church, and only less opposed to the Episco- 
pacy of the English. He seems to have been an 
earnest man, of much power and energy, honest 
in his purpose to help the poorer people and to 
put down civil and religious tyranny. It is easy 
to imagine circumstances in which he would have 
done much good to the commimity wherein he 
lived. But he was of coarse, passionate nature, 
and too self-willed and vain not to have his head 
turned by sudden success and the possession of 
power. Moreover, like most popular leaders of 



76 New York 

his stamp, the very sincerity of his convictions 
made him feel that the cause of the people was 
indeed his own, and therefore that the converse 
of the proposition was also true. Such a man 
when he himself becomes a ruler is of course likely 
to continue to exercise against the people the very 
qualities which in the beginning he has exercised 
on their behalf ; and this without any, or at most 
with but little, conscious change of intent. Yet 
with all Leisler's faults it must be remembered 
that fundamentally he was right, for he struggled 
to procure enlarged liberties for the people. 

The tyranny of King James had been two sided, 
— he had striven to make the power of the sov- 
ereign absolute, and less directly, to make the 
Romish Church arbiter of men's consciences. The 
New York commonalty detested his officers, both 
as representing the civil power that actually had 
oppressed them and as standing for the religious 
power that possibly would oppress them. They 
naturally bore especial hatred to such of the of- 
ficials as were Catholics; and it was this feeling 
that brought about the first break between the 
popular party and the upholders of the existing 
order of things. 

Leisler imported a cargo of wine from Europe, 
but refused to pay the duties on the ground that 
the collector of the port was a Catholic. The coim- 
cil sided with the collector, and high words passed 



Usurpation of Leisler 77 

between them and Leisler, ending with a furious 
quarrel and the interchange of threats. The com- 
mon folk at once made the cause of the recalcitrant 
wine merchant their own, and adopted him as 
their champion, — a position for which he was well 
fitted by his truculent daring and energy. Many 
wild stories were afloat as to the plots which were 
being concocted by the governmental officers, 
whom most of the citizens firmly believed to be 
imder the influence of the Catholics, and in secret 
league with the fallen monarch. It was rumored, 
now that they were about to surrender the city to 
the French, now that they were plotting to procure 
an uprising of the Catholics and massacre of the 
Protestants. As the latter outnumbered the 
former twenty to one, this fear shows the state of 
foolish panic to which the people had been 
wrought ; but foolish or not, their excitement kept 
rising, and they became more and more angry and 
uneasy. 

The outbreak was finally precipitated by a mis- 
understanding between the governing authorities 
and some of the trainbands; for the latter had 
been called in to assist the handful of regular 
troops who were on guard in the fort. The quarrel 
arose over a question of discipline between the 
lieutenant-governor and the militia officers. The 
former chafed under the suspicions of the citizens, 
— which he was perhaps conscious that he merited, 



78 New York 

at least to the extent of being but a lukewarm 
supporter of the new order of things, — and lacked 
the tact to handle himself properly in such an 
emergency. He ended by bursting into a passion, 
and dismissing the militia officers from his pres- 
ence with the remark that he would rather see the 
town on fire than be commanded by them. 

This was the spark to the train. The indignant 
militiamen were soon spreading the report that the || 

governor had threatened in their presence to bum 
the town. The burghers readily beHeved the 
truth of the statement, and under Leisler's lead 
determined to take the reins of the government 
into their own hands. At noon of May 31, 1689, 
Leisler simimoned the citizens to arms by beat of 
drum, mustering his own trainband before his 
house. The suddenness of the movement, and 
Leisler's energy, paralyzed opposition. The lieu- 
tenant-governor yielded up the fort, no time being 
given him to prepare for resistance ; and the city 
council were speedily overawed by the militia, who 
marched into their presence as they sat in the City 
Hall. The popular party for the first time was in 
complete control of the city. 

There was much justification for this act of the 
common people and their leaders. Doubtless their 
fears for their own lives and property were exag- 
gerated ; but there was good ground for uneasiness 
so long as the city was under the control of the 



Usurpation of Leisler 79 

Stuart adherents. The exiled House of Stuart 
became at once the active ally of the most bitter 
enemies of England, Holland, and their colonies. 
King James identified his cause with that of the 
Chtu-ch and the nation from whose triumph the 
New Yorkers had most to fear. Many of the 
officers whom he had left in high places proved 
willing to betray their countrymen for the sake of 
their king; and even attempted treachery might 
bring manifold and serious evils upon a small 
colonial city Hke New York. If there was really 
but little danger from the Catholics, there was 
beyond question a great deal to be feared from the 
French ; and all those who held commissions from 
the House of Stuart, if they were loyal to the king 
who had appointed them, were bound to render 
assistance to the common public enemy, France. 
Leisler and the burghers were on the whole right 
in feeling that they were warranted in overthrow- 
ing the old government. In this they were sup- 
ported, at least passively, by the bulk even of the 
conservative citizens; they were opposed chiefly 
by the rich and aristocratic famihes, who were 
hostile to all popular movements, and perhaps 
leaned secretly to the side of the Stuarts and 
absolute government. Of course the timid and 
wealthy persons of no convictions objected to 
change of any sort. Had Leisler contented him- 
self with merely establishing a temporary govern- 



8o New York 

ment to preserve order and ward off outside 
aggression until the new officials should arrive 
from England, he would have deserved the good- 
will of all the citizens. 

Unfortunately, he lacked the self-restraint and 
clear-sightedness necessary to the pursuit of such 
a course ; and he speedily established as arbitrary 
and unjust a government as that he overthrew. 
For a short time he ruled wisely and with moder- 
ation, oppressing no one. Then his head became 
turned by his position. He was always boasting 
of his feat in, as he asserted, saving the city from 
destruction; and he kept comparing himself to 
Cromwell, annotmcing that to rescue the people 
from their oppressors, there was need of sword- 
rule in New York. The English Episcopalians 
naturally detested his sway from the beginning, 
as did those wealthy French and Dutch families 
that had previously possessed a share of the gov- 
erning power. All of these people were closely 
watched; and though at first not actually mo- 
lested, they soon began to suffer petty oppression 
and injustice at the hands of the rougher of Leis- 
ler's lieutenants. As they grew more set against 
Leisler their hatred was repaid in kind. From 
time to time both their persons and their property 
were put in actual jeopardy by some freak of jeal- 
ous suspicion or wounded vanity on the part of 
the popular dictator. The mass of the people did 



Usurpation of Leisler 8i 

not care much for the ills that befell these first 
sufferers ; but before many months were over, they 
themselves were forced to bear their share of un- 
just treatment, and then of course they became 
very loud in their indignation. Leisler was doubt- 
less in part actuated by honest distrust of his 
opponents, and belief that he himself could do 
most good to the city and especially to the com- 
mon folk, and in part by the ambitions to which 
his success had given birth. He foimd it difficult 
to know where to stop in pursuing his dictatorial 
policy. His suspicion of the Episcopalians grew 
to include the Puritans. His animosity toward 
the aristocratic families was far from being alto- 
gether causeless; for they were undoubtedly 
bitterly hostile not only to him but to the popular 
cause he represented. But he soon began to con- 
found his aristocratic enemies with the people of 
means generally ; and his baser supporters, under 
plea of enthusiasm for Protestantism and Hberty, 
menaced indiscriminately every man of property, 
so that all the most thrifty and successful people 
of the community, including the Dutch and Hu- 
guenot clergy, became banded together against 
him. The decent working men also grew alarmed 
at his excesses and irritated at the pride he dis- 
played and at the insolence of some of his sub- 
ordinates, their own former equals. 

Soon after Leisler had overthrown the lieuten- 
6 



82 New York 

ant-govemor and taken the reins of power, a royal 
proclamation was brought over which continued 
in office all Protestant officials. The old council 
greeted this proclamation with exultation, for if 
obeyed it restored them to office; but Leisler, 
fearing for his life if his foes returned to power, 
and furious at seeing his work thus undone, de- 
termined to disobey the command of the sove- 
reigns, treasonable though such conduct was. 
At the head of his troops he dispersed the council, 
and continued his own appointees in place. The 
mob was at this time heartily in his favor, and 
cheered on the trainbands; and finally Bayard 
and Van Cortland t were chased from the city. 

Leisler had summoned a convention which, 
when it met, contained of course only the extreme 
men ; not a few of its members were Republicans, 
or avowed adherents to the policy of Oliver Crom- 
well. They chose a committee of safety, ten in 
number, consisting of Hollanders, Huguenots, 
and EngHsh Puritans. They were all furious 
Protestants and ultra liberals; and they speedily 
nominated Leisler as commander-in-chief, with 
extensive and indeed arbitrary powers. Soon 
afterward a letter was received from the sove- 
reigns which was directed to the ' 'commander-in- 
chief" of the province of New York. It was 
meant for Nicholson whom the home government 
supposed to be still in power, but by an oversight 



Usurpation of Leisler 83 

his name was not put in the document; and the 
delighted Leisler insisted that he himself was the 
man for whom it was intended. He promptly- 
assumed the title of lieutenant-governor, chose 
his own council, and formally entered on his duties 
as the royal representative and ruler of the colony. 
He treated the city as under martial law, yet in 
certain matters he showed his leaning toward 
democracy. Thus instead of appointing a mayor 
he allowed the freeholders to elect one, — the first, 
and until 1834, the last elective mayor of New 
York. The opposition to his rule outside of 
Manhattan Island was very strong from the out- 
set; and Albany, under the lead of Schuyler, 
refused to recognize his authority until forced to 
do so by the pressing danger from the Cana- 
dian French and their savage allies. 

In outside matters the usurping governor 
showed breadth of mind, — notably in calling a 
congress of the colonies, the first of its kind, which 
met in New York in the spring of 1690. The 
purpose of the meeting was to plan a joint attack 
on Canada; for Count Frontenac's war-parties 
were cruelly harassing the outlying settlements of 
both New York and New England. A small army 
of Connecticut men and New Yorkers was as- 
sembled, and marched to the head of Lake Cham- 
plain, but owing to mismanagement accomplished 
nothing; and the expedition was finally aban- 



84 New York 

doned after a bitter quarrel between Leisler and his 
New England allies. Nothing against France was 
accomplished beyond a couple of brilliant raids 
made by Schuyler up to the walls of Montreal, 
and the capture of a number of French ships by 
Leisler' s New York privateers. Yet, though this 
intercolonial congress produced such small results, 
it marks an era in the growth of the provinces 
which afterward became the United States. It 
was the first occasion on which the colonies ever 
showed the least tendency to act together, or on 
which they appeared as aught but a jumble of 
mutually hostile communities. Up to this time 
their several paths of development had been en- 
tirely separate, and their interests independent 
and usually conflicting; but after this date they 
had a certain loose connection with one another, 
and it becomes possible to treat their history in 
some degree as a whole. 

In domestic affairs, Leisler sometimes did well 
and sometimes ill. He summoned two popular 
assemblies. They were filled with his supporters, 
ratified all his acts, and gave him power to go to 
any lengths he chose. He allowed his subor- 
dinates to maltreat the Long Islanders, Dutchmen 
and Puritans alike, who accordingly sent long 
petitions for redress to England. He opened 
letters, plundered houses, confiscated estates to 
satisfy taxes, and imprisoned numbers of the lead- 



Usurpation of Leisler 85 

ing citizens whom he beHeved to be his enemies. 
He treated the Calvinist dominies as roughly as 
their flocks, and all the men of property became 
greatly alarmed. The leading Dutch and French 
citizens made common cause with the English, 
and sent a vigorous remonstrance to the home 
government praying for relief, and denouncing 
Leisler as an ' 'insolent alien" who had tyrannized 
over the city, holding the lives and property of all 
citizens at his mercy, and setting up as rulers men 
of the meanest station and capacity, and often of 
criminal antecedents. Doubtless much of this 
opposition was due merely to an aristocratic dis- 
like of anything like democracy; but Leisler' s 
' 'government of the people" had beyond question 
begun to degenerate into government by the mob 
and by a tyrant. His overbearing conduct alien- 
ated the mass of the mechanics, craftsmen, and 
laborers; and he was soon left unsupported save 
by the men he had put in office, and by the militia, 
in whose ranks he had left only his own adherents. 
The repeated petitions of the citizens attracted 
the attention of King William; and to stop the 
disorders a governor (Sloughter) and a lieutenant- 
governor (Ingoldsby) were duly commissioned, 
and sent out to the colony with an adequate force 
of regular troops. The ship carrying the governor 
was blown out of its course ; and when Ingoldsby, 
early in February, 1691, landed on Manhattan 



86 New York 

Island, Leisler refused to recognize his authority. 
The mass of the citizens supported Ingoldsby, 
while the militia stood by Leisler. For six weeks 
the two parties remained under arms, threatening 
each other, Ingoldsby' s headquarters being in the 
City Hall and Leisler's in the fort. Then a skir- 
mish took place in which several of Ingoldsby' s 
regulars were killed or wounded, while Leisler's 
militia, shielded by the fort, escaped unharmed. 
The very day after this, Governor Sloughter's ship 
appeared in the harbor, and he immediately landed 
and took command. The following morning 
Leisler's militia deserted him, and he and his chief 
officers were promptly seized and imprisoned. 
They were tried for high treason, and Leisler and 
Milbome, the two ringleaders, were adjudged 
guilty and hanged; most of the respectable citi- 
zens, including the clergymen of every denomi- 
nation, demanding their death as affording the 
only warrant for the future safety of the colony. 
The Leislerian or democratic party was cowed, 
and for the moment did nothing save feebly and 
ineffectually to protest against the execution of 
the sentence. 

The popular party of New York had certainly 
failed to show governmental capacity, moderation 
toward opponents, or power to curb the oppressive 
tyranny of its own leaders. Its downfall was as 
complete as the triumph of the aristocratic ele- 



Usurpation of Leisler 87 

ment. The government of the colony was at once 
put on the basis on which it stood until the out- 
break of the Revolution. There was a governor 
appointed by the king, and a council hkewise 
appointed ; while the Assembly was elected by the 
freeholders. The suffrage was thus limited by a 
strict property quahfication. Liberty of con- 
science was granted to all Protestant sects, but not 
to the Catholics ; and the Church of England was 
practically made the State Church, though the 
Dutch and French congregations were secured in 
the rights guaranteed them by treaty. It was 
thus essentially a class or aristocratic government, 
— none the less so because to European eyes the 
little American aristocracy seemed both poor and 
rude. In a frontier community such as New York 
then was, it was comparatively easy for any man 
to acquire property and position, and thus step 
into the ranks of the relatively large ruling class.^ 

Many of the leading families in colonial times were 
descended from the Old World gentry. Many others sprang 
from successful adventurers of almost unknown ancestry; 
and there was every gradation between these two extremes. 
The Livingstons, for instance, one of the really noted New 
York families, were descended from a young Scotch factor, 
just like hundreds of penniless, pushing young Scotchmen 
who have come to this country in the steerage of sailing-ship 
or steamer during the present century. Of the men of high 
social standing in the Old World who came over to make 
their fortunes in the New, probably the majority failed, and 
their descendants slipped down into the lower ranks of the 
population. 



88 New York 

Nevertheless, democracy, as such, had small share 
in the government. 

However, the Leislerians soon plucked up heart, 
and appeared once more in public, claiming their 
fallen chief as a martyr, and troubling their foes 
for a generation ere they gradually lost their iden- 
tity and became merged in the general mass of the 
popular party. Though this element of the popu- 
lation, owing to the restricted suffrage, possessed 
less than its due weight in the government, yet it 
always had allies and mouthpieces in the Assem- 
bly. These advocates of popular rights rarely 
made a fight for the granting of political power to 
the masses, but they were kept busy in battling 
against the prerogatives of the Crown and the 
power of the great patroons and rich merchants. 
For the next three quarters of a century the 
struggle for popular rights in New York took the 
form, not of a demand for democratic government 
and manhood suffrage, but of a contest waged on 
behalf of the men of small property against the 
authority of a foreign monarchy and the rule of a 
native oHgarchy. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE GROWTH OF THE COLONIAL SEAPORT. 1691- 

1720. 

FOR three quarters of a century after the col- 
lapse of Leisler's rebellion the internal and 
external politics of New York City ran in 
monotonous grooves, and were largely merged in 
those of the province, the interests of the town 
and country being as a rule identical. There was 
a succession of long wars with France, the New 
Yorkers, like the other English colonists, and like 
England herself, soon coming to look upon the 
French as their hereditary and natural foes. This 
continuous struggle with a powerful common 
enemy was a potent cause in keeping the colonists 
of Manhattan, like those of the rest of America, 
loyal to the mother country; and the growth of 
sentiments and interests hostile to the latter, 
though steady, was unappreciated even by the 
colonists themselves. Their internal politics were 
marked by unceasing struggles in the Assembly, — 
struggles, sometimes between the aristocratic and 
popular factions, sometimes between one or the 
other or both of these factions and whoever hap- 
pened for the time to represent the Crown. The 
overthrow of the Stuart dynasty had resulted in 

89 



90 New York 

an immense gain for liberty, and for free and or- 
derly government in New York. The last Stuart 
king had never granted the liberties he had prom- 
ised to the colonists; but by his successor they 
were immediately given in full. Hitherto New 
York's share in self-government had depended 
purely on the pleasure of her successive rulers. 
Under and owing to William of Orange, she made 
the first noteworthy advance in the direction of 
self-government by right, irrespective of the views 
of the royal governor who might be over her. 

Throughout all this period New York was a little 
seaport town, without manufactures, and de- 
pendent upon ocean industries for her well-being. 
There was little inland commerce ; everything was 
done by shipping. The merchants were engaged 
in the river trade with Albany and the interior, in 
the coast trade with the neighboring colonies, in 
the fisheries, and in the sea trade with England, 
Africa, and the East and West Indies. Every few 
years there occurred a prolonged maritime war 
with either France or Spain, and sometimes with 
both. Then the seas were scourged and the coasts 
vexed by the war-ships and privateers of the hos- 
tile powers; and the intervals of peace were 
troubled by the ravages of pirate and picaroon. 
Commerce was not a merely peaceful calling ; and 
those who went down to the sea in ships led troub- 
lous lives. 



Growth of the Seaport 91 

The seafaring folk, or those whose business was 
connected with theirs, formed the bulk of New 
York's white population. The poor man went to 
sea in the vessel the richer man built or owned or 
commanded; and where the one risked life and 
limb, the other at least risked his fortune and 
future. Many of the ventures were attended with 
great danger even in times of peace. Besides the 
common risks of storm and wreck, other and pe- 
culiar perils were braved by the ships that sailed 
for the Guinea Coast, to take part in the profitable 
but hideously brutal and revolting trade for slaves. 
The traffic with the strange coast cities of the Red 
Sea and the Indian Ocean likewise had dangers all 
its own. Pirate and sultan and savage chief had 
all to be guarded against, and sometimes out- 
witted, and sometimes outfought. 

Moreover, the New York merchants and sea- 
men were themselves ready enough to risk their 
lives and money in enterprises where the profits 
to be gained by peaceful trade came second, and 
those by legal warfare or illegal plundering first. 
In every war the people plunged into the business 
of privateering with immense zest and eagerness. 
New York Province dreaded the Canadians and 
Indians, but New York City feared only the fleets 
of France ; her burghers warred, as well as traded, 
chiefly on the ocean. Privateering was a species 
of gambling which combined the certainty of 



92 New York 

exciting adventure with the chance of enormous 
profit, and it naturally possessed special attrac- 
tions for the bolder and more reckless spirits. 
Many of the merchants who fitted out privateers 
lost heavily, but many others made prizes so rich 
that the profits of ordinary voyages sank into 
insignificance by comparison. Spanish treasure- 
ships, and French vessels laden with costly stuffs 
from the West Indies or the Orient, were brought 
into New York Harbor again and again, — often 
after fights to the severity of which the battered 
hulls of both the captor and the vanquished vessel 
bore unequivocal testimony. When the prize was 
very rich and the crew of the privateer large, the 
home-coming of the latter meant a riot; for in 
such a case the flushed privateersmen celebrated 
their victory with wild orgies and outrages, and 
finally had to be put down by actual battle in the 
streets. The landowners were often merchants 
as well; and more than one of them was able to 
flank the gateway of his manor-house with the 
carved prows and figure-heads of the vessels his 
own privateers had captured. 

In time of war both risk and profit were great, 
yet they were but little less in the short periods of 
peace, or rather of truce. Under the system of 
jealous trade-exclusion which then obtained, each 
trader was a possible smuggler, and the cruisers 
of every naval power were always harassing the 



Growth of the Seaport 93 

merchantmen sailing under rival flags. Even if a 
vessel did not smuggle, she was liable at any 
moment to be seized on the pretext that she was 
trying to ; and so, as she had to undergo the dan- 
gers in any event, she felt no reluctance in at- 
tempting to gather the profits when occasion 
offered. Again, the line dividing the work of the 
privateer from the work of the pirate was easy to 
overstep, and those who employed the one were 
not reluctant at times to profit by the deeds of the 
other. The pirate merely continued in somewhat 
exaggerated form against all nations, at all times, 
the practices which the privateer employed against 
certain nations at certain times. There were 
plenty of both merchants and seamen in New 
York who failed to draw any nice distinction 
between the two classes of vessels; and the full- 
armed, strongly manned trading-ship, which alone 
was employed in the more perilous water-paths of 
commerce, and which was always ready to do 
privateering work in time of actual war, in time 
of peace was not unapt to hoist the black flag for 
the nonce in distant seas, or at least to barter 
freely with the acknowledged pirates. The slav- 
ers in particular, whose crews and captains were 
sure to be rough, hardened, greedy men, wonted 
to bloodshed and violence, were very likely to turn 
pirate as occasion offered ; while the pirates were 
equally wilHng to engage in the slave-trade, and 



94 New York 

to sell their living cargoes to the regular slavers, or 
to attack the latter, as circumstances dictated. 
The lawlessness was greatest in the Oriental seas. 
The huge Arab and Indian coasters, freighted with 
rare and precious stuffs, were sought after with 
furious eagerness by both pirate and privateer; 
while the former also swooped down on the Dutch 
and English East Indiamen . At Madagascar there 
was a regular fort and station to which some of the 
New York merchants sent ships for the sole pur- 
pose of trading with the pirate vessels who carried 
their ill-gotten goods thither. Many a daring 
skipper who obeyed the law fairly well in Atlantic 
waters, felt free to do as he wished when he neared 
Madagascar, or cruised through the Red Sea and 
the Indian Ocean. The rich cargoes of Oriental 
goods, the spices, perfumes, silks, shawls, rugs, 
pearls, and golden coin and jewels, were of such 
value that men did not care to ask too closely how 
they were acquired. There were plenty of ad- 
venturous young New Yorkers, of good blood, who 
were themselves privateersmen, Red-Sea men, 
or slavers ; and in the throng of seafaring men of 
this type, the crews and captains of the pirate 
ships passed unchallenged. The taverns and low 
houses along the water-front of the little seaport 
were filled with wind-roughened sailor-folk, out- 
landish in speech and dress, wild of look, black of 
heart, and ripe for any desperate venture. Their 



Growth of the Seaport 95 

dare-devil commanders were not only tolerated 
but welcomed as guests at the houses of many 
among the gentry and merchants, who had them- 
selves in one way or another gained great profit 
from lawless ocean warfare. Their mad freaks 
and furious orgies and carouses made them the 
terror of quiet people; but their lavish extrava- 
gance with their stores of strange Spanish, Indian, 
and Arabian coin gave them also a certain popu- 
larity. . 

The goods brought from the far eastern lands by 
these men, and by their fellow sea-rovers of slightly 
stricter morality, gave a touch of quaint luxury, 
and their own presence added an air of dash and 
adventure, to the life of the growing town on 
Manhattan Island. There was a suggestion of the 
Orient and of hazardous fortunes, ill made and 
lightly lost, in the costly goods with which the rich 
burghers and manorial lords decked their roomy 
houses, and clothed themselves and their wives. 
The dress of the time was picturesque; and the 
small social world of New York, as haughty and 
exclusive after its own fashion as any, looked le- 
niently on the men whose deeds made it possible for 
the titled Crown officials, and the untitled leaders 
of the local oligarchy, alike, to go clad in rich 
raiment. More than one sea-chief of doubtful ante- 
cedents held his head high among the New York 
people of position, on the infrequent occasions 



96 New York 

when he landed to revel and live at ease, while 
his black-hulled, rakish craft was discharging her 
cargo at the wharves, or refitting for another 
mysterious voyage. The grim-visaged pirate cap- 
tain, in his laced cap, rich jacket, and short white 
knee-trunks, with heavy gold chains round his 
neck, and jewel-hilted dagger in belt, was a strik- 
ing and characteristic feature of New York life at 
the close of the seventeenth century. Soon after- 
ward the boldness and the serious nature of the 
piratical ravages thoroughly roused the home 
government, which made resolute efforts to stop 
them. The colonial authorities joined to hunt the 
rovers from their coasts; and though the men of 
the black flag continued to ply their trade in trop- 
ical seas, they never after that time appeared in 
the colonial seaports save by stealth. 

The favor shown to the pirates brought scandal 
on the name of more than one royal governor of 
New York. This was especially the case with 
Gov. Benjamin Fletcher, a stout, florid soldier of 
fortune, who came over to take control in 1692, 
the year after the tragic end of Leisler's rebellion. 
He possessed both energy and courage, but was 
utterly unfitted for a civil post of such difficulty 
as that to which he was now appointed. Being a 
fawning courtier to the king, he naturally took a 
tone of insolent command in dealing with the col- 
ony. Though very strict in religious observances 



Growth of the Seaport 97 

he was a loose liver, fond of luxury, and of extrava- 
gant habits ; he was therefore continually in want 
of money, and both he and some of his council 
were in the habit of receiving valuable gifts — 
amounting to blackmail — from the different pirate 
ships. Finally, the scandal grew so great that he 
was recalled. 

Other causes, however, contributed to bring 
about the recall. Fletcher was a stanch supporter 
of the colonial aristocracy, and bitterly opposed 
to the popular party. He interfered actively 
against the latter in the elections for the General 
Assembly, and helped to achieve a triumph which 
was largely due to wholesale intimidations, — for 
the partisans of the governor and the richer classes 
mobbed their opponents, and in many places drove 
them by force from the polling-booths. He 
granted the public lands right and left, doing his 
best to divide the soil of the province among a few 
rich families. He thus sought to build up a sys- 
tem of gigantic tenant-farmed estates, instead of 
allowing the country to become filled with small 
freehold farmers. He also connived at the ac- 
quisition by private individuals of great tracts of 
land from the Indians ; and his grants were made 
to ministers and churches as well as to laymen. 
In short, his whole theory was to depress the free- 
men of small means, and to concentrate power and 
wealth in the hands of the Church and the 



98 New York 

aristocracy ; and according to his capacities he was 
an unwholesome and vicious force in the body 
poHtic. 

For some of Fletcher's acts, however, there was 
at least much excuse; and in certain of the 
wrangles in which he became engaged, his op- 
ponents behaved no better than he did. Thus, 
he allowed the merchants to evade the iron laws 
of trade. He probably winked at these evasions, 
partly from dislike of trouble, partly, perhaps, 
from worse motives; but it may be that he felt 
some genuine impatience with the restrictions by 
which the merchants of England sought to hem 
in the growth of the colonies and to keep their 
trade solely for the benefit of the ruling country. 
As regards most articles, the colonists could only 
trade outright with England, and the consequent 
loss to the merchants was immense. Of course, 
such a system put a premium on smuggling, and, 
for the matter of that, on trading with pirates, too, 
and on every other method by which the laws 
could be evaded. Yet these same laws were so in 
accord with the spirit of the time that there was 
little open protest against them, though they 
doubtless contributed to the growth of the vague 
feeling of discontent with the home government 
which gradually crept into colonial hearts. On 
the other hand the Assembly, or popular branch of 
the colonial legislature, was always striving to 



Growth of the Seaport 99 

throw, as nearly as might be, the whole burden of 
colonial defense on the British Crown and Parlia- 
ment; and its selfishness, short-sightedness, and 
very moderate ability, together with its unlimited 
capacity for ignoble squabbling, spake but ill for 
the body of electors to whose suffrages it owed its 
being. The different colonies, moreover, cared 
not a jot for one another's misfortunes. Well- 
settled, thriving New England was quite content 
to let thinly-settled, struggling New York get on 
as best she might when almost overwhelmed by 
the Canadians and Indians. The Puritan com- 
monwealths were well pleased to have such a 
buffer between them and French aggression. 
They looked on with cold and selfish indifference 
until the danger was brought home directly to 
their own thresholds; the money-making spirit 
was as yet too strong in their breasts to leave room 
for more generous and disinterested emotions. 
Fletcher spent much of his time in a wordy war- 
fare with the New Englanders, because of their 
desertion of New York, and in quarreling with the 
Assembly of the latter province for its multifarious 
misdeeds, and especially for the heinous sin of 
endeavoring to whittle down his own salary. He 
was recalled to England early in 1698. 

Fletcher's successor was a nobleman of strong 
and high character, the Earl of Bellomont, — a man 
of pure life and strict honor, and altogether of far 



TOO New York 

nobler type than the average colonial governor. 
He belonged to that limited class in the English 
aristocracy which combined intense pride and 
exclusiveness in social matters with a genuine be- 
lief in popular liberty and political equality, and a 
dislike of privilege and privileged castes. He 
seems to have clearly seen that the establishment 
in New York of an oligarchy such as Fletcher and 
the wealthy citizens in general dreamed of, meant 
injustice to the mass of the people for the time 
being, and therefore in the end an uprising, and 
the destruction of the iniquitous system by vio- 
lence. His duty appeared to him plain; and he 
attacked the intrenched evils with the utmost reso- 
lution. It was an uphill struggle, for the most 
powerful interests of the colony were banded 
against him ; and, moreover, in dealing with men 
his tact was not equal to his courage and probity. 
Bellomont at once espoused the cause of the 
Leislerians, the champions of the common people ; 
and during his three years' rule in New York the 
popular party was uppermost. He even had the 
bodies of Leisler and Milbome disinterred and 
buried again with all honor. From the outset he 
was forced into an unrelenting war on many of the 
public officials, who were given over to financial 
dishonesty and bribe-taking, being in corrupt col- 
lusion with the merchants, pirates, and smugglers ; 
for the whole governmental service had become 



Growth of the Seaport loi 

thoroughly debauched. He enforced the laws of 
trade with rigid severity, put down smuggling, 
and checked in every way the unscrupulous greed 
of the great merchants. He also hunted away the 
pirates, and hung those whom he caught in chains 
on the different headlands of the coast ; and it was 
while engaged in this pursuit that there occurred 
the curious incident of his connection with the 
famous Captain Kidd. The latter was a daring 
seaman w^ho, when the earl first knew him, bore a 
good character, as seafaring characters went, and 
readily fell in with the earl's plans for pirate-hunt- 
ing. Finally the earl, in company with several 
other English noblemen, and with one New Yorker, 
Livingston, the founder of a line of manorial 
lords, agreed to fit out Kidd for a cruise against 
the pirates, whose haunts he well knew. All were 
to go shares in whatever plunder might be ob- 
tained from the ships of the captured freebooters. 
Kidd's proposed enterprise attracted much atten- 
tion, and as he was given a fine bark he found no 
difficulty in manning her with a crew better fitted 
for warlike than peaceful pursuits. He cruised 
after pirates for some time, but with indifferent 
success; whereupon he philosophically turned 
pirate himself, and became one of the scourges of 
the ocean. He still hatmted the New York and 
New England coast at times, landing in out-of-the- 
way havens, and burying his blood-stained treasure 



I02 New York 

on lonely beaches and islands; and finally the 
earl caught his backsliding friend, who was shortly 
afterward hung in chains at Execution Dock. 
The peculiar circumstances attendant upon Kidd's 
turning pirate attracted widespread attention, 
though his exploits were, in reality, less remark- 
able than those of scores of other freebooters. He 
became a favorite subject for ballads, and grad- 
ually grew to be accepted in the popular mind as 
the archetype of his kind ; while the search for his 
buried treasure, having been successful in one or 
two instances, became almost a recognized indus- 
try among the more imaginative of the dwellers 
by the sea. 

Bellomont distinctly perceived the vast evils 
produced by the system of huge landed estates; 
and on behalf of the small freeholders he fearlessly 
attacked the manorial lords. He forfeited such of 
their grants as he considered to have been ille- 
gally secured ; no inconsiderable number when the 
estates fraudulently purchased from the Indians 
were added to those acquired by judicious presents 
to the Crown officials. His aim was ultimately to 
establish the rule that no one estate larger than a 
thousand acres should be permitted. In attack- 
ing laymen he did not spare the Church ; and as- 
sailed alike the excessive land-grants of the Dutch 
Reformed clergy and the Anglican bodies. His 
term of office was too short to permit him to put 



Growth of the Seaport 103 

his far-reaching plans into execution; neverthe- 
less, he did accomplish something of what he was 
aiming at. 

Naturally Bellomont aroused the intense hos- 
tility of all the powerful, favored classes he had 
attacked. Almost every great landowner and 
rich merchant, every corrupt Crown official, every 
man who had thriven by smuggling and by wink- 
ing at piracy, assailed him with venomous anger. 
His character stood so high, however, that these 
attacks could not shake him in the esteem of the 
home powers; while the common people loved 
and reverenced him exceedingly, and mourned 
him with bitter regret when in 1701 he died, after 
a short rule of three years. 

There followed a period of the utmost confu- 
sion, the Leislerian and aristocratic factions coming 
almost to civil war ; for the former had been raised 
to power by Bellomont, but now lacked his re- 
straining hand, and feared the speedy triumph of 
the oligarchy under some new governor. The 
culminating points were reached in the trial of two 
of the aristocratic leaders for alleged treason, and 
in a disorderly election for aldermen in New York. 
Both parties claimed the victory in this election, 
the voting in many of the precincts being distin- 
guished by the most flagrant fraud; and all the 
contending aldermen proceeded to try to take 
their seats at the same time, the resulting riot 



I04 New York 

being ended by a compromise. In 1702, when 
Queen Anne had just ascended the throne, 
her nephew, Lord Cornbury, came out as gov- 
ernor. He promptly restored order by putting 
down the Leislerians; and by his influence the 
aristocracy were once more placed in power. To 
say truth, the popular party, by its violence, and 
the corruption of some of its chiefs, had done much 
to forfeit the good-will of the respectable middle 
classes. 

Cornbury, however, did the democracy a good 
turn by forthwith drowning the memory of its 
shortcomings in the torrent of his own follies and 
misdeeds. He was very nearly an ideal example 
of what a royal governor should not be. He was 
both silly and wicked. He hated the popular 
party, and in all ways that he could he curtailed 
the political rights of the people. He favored the 
manorial lords and rich merchants as against the 
commonalty; but he did all he could to wrong 
even these favorites when it was for his own in- 
terest to do so. He took bribes, very thinly dis- 
guised as gifts. He was always in debt, and was 
given to debauchery of various kinds. One of his 
amusements was to masquerade in woman's gar- 
ments, being, of all things, inordinately proud that 
when thus dressed he looked like Queen Anne . He 
added bigotry to his other failings, and persecuted 
the Presbyterians, who were endeavoring to get 



Growth of the Seaport 105 

a foothold in the colony; he imprisoned their 
ministers and confiscated their little meeting- 
houses. In this respect, however, he was but a 
shade worse than the men he ruled over; for the 
Assembly had passed a law condemning to death 
all Catholic priests found in the colony, — a law 
of which the wickedness was neither atoned for 
nor justified by the fact that the same measure of 
iniquity was meted out to the Protestants in the 
countries where the Catholics had control. He 
appropriated to other uses the moneys furnished 
by the Assembly to put New York harbor into a 
state of defense; the result being that a French 
war-ship once entered the lower bay and threw the 
whole city into terror. Finally, the citizens of all 
parties became so exasperated against him as to 
clamorously demand his removal, which was 
granted in 1708; but before he left the colony he 
had been thrown into prison for debt. In dealing 
with him the Assembly took very high ground in 
regard to the right of the colony to regulate its 
own affairs, insisting on the right of the popular 
branch of the government to fix the taxes, and to 
appoint most of the public officers and regulate 
their fees. Resolutions of this character show 
that during the score of years which had elapsed 
since the downfall of the Stuarts, the colony had 
made giant strides toward realizing its own rights 
and powers. With all their faults, the Leislerians 



io6 New York 

had done good service in arousing the desire for 
freedom, and in teaching men — if often only by- 
painful example and experience — to practise the 
self-restraint which is as necessary as self-confi- 
dence to any commimity desirous of doing its own 
governmental work. 

After a couple of years of practical interregnum, 
New York received another governor, one Robert 
Hunter, whose term lasted until 1720. He was a 
wise and upright man, who did justice to all, 
though, if anything, favoring the popular party. 
But the personality of the governor was rapidly 
becoming of less and less consequence to New 
York as the city and province grew in size. The 
condition of the colony and the policy of the Brit- 
ish King and Parliament were the really important 
factors of the problem. 

About this time there was a great infiiix of Ger- 
mans from the Rhine provinces. They were poor 
peasants who had fled from before the French 
armies ; and while most went on into the country, 
a considerable number remained in New York, to 
add one more to the many elements in its popu- 
lation. As they were ignorant and poverty- 
stricken, the colonists of English, Dutch, and 
Huguenot blood looked down on and despised 
them, not wholly without reason. One feature of 
the settlement of America is that each mass of 
immigrants feels much distrust and contempt for 



Growth of the Seaport 107 

the mass — usually of a different nationality — 
which comes a generation later. Presbyterians 
from Scotland and Ireland began to straggle in, 
were allowed to build a church, and got a firm foot- 
hold. There was an insurrection of negro slaves, 
of which more anon. 

The city was growing slowly. English, Dutch, 
and Huguenot names succeeded one another in the 
mayoralty, showing that there was no attempt on 
the part of one race to exclude the others from 
their share of political power. The mass of the 
people were not very well off, and grudged taxes ; 
the annual expenditure of the city government was 
only about ;;^3oo and was covered by the annual 
income. The Assembly was already dabbling in 
paper money, and it had been found necessary to 
pass poor-laws, and authorize the arrest of street 
beggars. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE CLOSING OF THE COLONIAL PERIOD. 1720-1764. 

IN 1710 New York City contained some 6,000 
inhabitants, in 1750 over 12,000, and at the 
outbreak of the Revolution about 20,000. 
It was a smaller town than either Boston or Phila- 
delphia, with a society far less democratic, and 
divided by much sharper lines of caste. Stran- 
gers complained, then as now, that it was difficult to 
say what a typical New Yorker was, because New 
York's population was composed of various races, 
differing widely in blood, religion, and conditions 
of life. In fact, this diversity has always been the 
dominant note of New York. No sooner has one 
set of varying elements been fused together than 
another stream has been poured into the crucible. 
There probably has been no period in the city's 
growth during which the New Yorkers whose 
parents were bom in New York formed the ma- 
jority of the population ; and there never has been 
a time when the bulk of the citizens were of Eng- 
lish blood. 

All this is in striking contrast to what has gone 
on in some other American cities, as, for instance, 
Boston. Colonial Boston was a Puritan English 

town, where the people were in all essentials won- 

108 



Closing of Colonial Period 109 

derfully like one another. New York, however, 
never was really an English town, and its citizens 
always differed radically among themselves in 
morals, manners, and physical well-being, no less 
than in speech, blood, and creed. From time to 
time new ethnic elements have made their appear- 
ance, but the change has been not from one race to 
another, but from one mixture of races to another. 

Of course there are very sharp points of contrast 
other than those of mere size and growth between 
colonial New York and the New York of the 
United States. The three leading religious de- 
nominations of the present United States had but 
small and scanty followings in colonial times. In 
New York, just prior to the Revolution, the ]\Ieth- 
odists and Baptists had but a small meeting- 
house apiece, and the handful of Catholics no 
recognized place of worship whatever ; whereas at 
the present day the Methodists and Baptists form 
the two leading and characteristic denominations 
in the country districts of America, while Cathol- 
icism has forged to the front in the cities. 

In eighteenth-century New York both the 
Quakers and Jews had places of worship. The 
Germans had one Lutheran and one Calvinistic 
Church; but the German pre-revolutionary im- 
migrants did not produce many men of note, and 
their congregations remained small and unpro- 
gressive, their yoimg men of spirit drifting off to 



no New York 

other churches as they learned English, The 
Presbyterian congregations, on the other hand, 
throve apace, in spite of the petty and irritating 
persecution of the Episcopalians. They received 
many recruits from the Scotch and Scotch-Irish 
immigrants; and to a man they were all zealous 
upholders of popular rights, and truculently de- 
fiant toward Great Britain. The Irish of that day 
were already a prominent element of New York 
life; but they were Presbyterians, not Catholics. 
They celebrated Saint Patrick's day with enthu- 
siasm, and their toasts to Ireland and America, 
together with their scarcely veiled hostility to 
England, would not be out of place on similar oc- 
casions at present ; but some of their other toasts, 
such as those to the memory of King William and 
to the Protestant succession, would scarcely ap- 
peal to a Milesian patriot nowadays. 

The Huguenots were assimilated more easily 
than any other element of the population, and 
produced on the whole the highest grade of citi- 
zens. By the middle of the century the Holland- 
ers likewise had begun to speak English. It was 
the official language of the colony, and the young 
men of push, who wished to make their mark in 
the world, had to learn it in order to succeed. The 
conservative men, the sticklers for old ways and 
customs, clung obstinately to Dutch; and the 
consequence was that the energetic young people 



Closing of Colonial Period m 

began to leave the Dutch churches, and to join the 
Episcopalian and Presbyterian congregations in 
constantly increasing numbers, — doing exactly 
what we see being done by the Scandinavian and 
German Lutherans in portions of the Northwest 
at the present day. The drain was so serious that 
in 1764, as the only means of putting a stop there- 
to, it was decided to hold the church services in 
both English and Dutch; and forty years after- 
ward Dutch was entirely abandoned. These 
measures arrested the decay of the Dutch Re- 
formed Church, and prevented its sharing the fate 
of total extinction which befell the Swedish Luth- 
eran bodies on the Delaware ; but they were not 
taken in time to prevent the church from falling 
much behind the place which it should have occu- 
pied, taking into account the numbers, intelli- 
gence, and morality of its members, — for through- 
out the colonial period the Dutch remained the 
largest of the many elements in New York's popu- 
lation. 

As the wealthy Dutch and Huguenot families 
assimilated themselves to the English, they inter- 
married with them, and in many cases joined the 
Episcopal Church; though a considerable num- 
ber, especially among those whose affiliations were 
with the popular party, remained attached to one 
or the other of the Calvinist bodies. The Epis- 
copal Church — or, as it was then the Church of 



112 New York 

England — was the fashionable organization, the 
one to which the Crown officials belonged, and the 
center round which the court party rallied. Among 
its members were to be found most of the influen- 
tial people, — the manorial lords and large mer- 
chants, who controlled the affairs of the colony, 
and were the social and political leaders. It 
claimed to be in a sense the State Church, and had 
many immunities and privileges ; and as far as it 
could, though only in petty fashion, it oppressed 
the dissenting bodies, — notably the Presbyterians, 
who were not, like the Huguenots and Hol- 
landers, protected by treaty. When King's Col- 
lege, now Columbia, was founded by the colony, 
it was put under the control of the Church of 
England, and was made in a small way a seat of 
Tory feeling. The various Protestant bodies were 
all filled with sour jealousy of one another, and 
were only united in cordial hatred of the Roman- 
ists, to whom they forbade entrance into the col- 
ony; and though they tolerated the presence of 
the Jews, they would not for some time let them 
vote. 

Social lines were very strongly marked, — the 
intensely aristocratic make-up of the town being 
in striking contrast to the democratic equality 
typical of a young American city of the same size 
nowadays. The manorial lords stood first in rank 
and influence, and in the respect universally 



Closing of Colonial Period 113 

accorded them. They lived at ease in the roomy 
mansions on their great tenant-farmed estates; 
and they also usually owned fine houses in either 
New York or Albany, and sometimes in both. 
Their houses were really extremely comfortable, 
and were built with a certain stately simplicity of 
style which contrasted very favorably with the 
mean or pretentious architecture of most New 
York buildings dating back to the early or middle 
portions of the present century. They were filled 
with many rooms, wherein a host of kinsmen, 
friends, and retainers might dwell; and they had 
great halls, broad verandas, heavy mahogany- 
railed staircases, and huge open fireplaces, which 
in winter were crammed with roaring logs. The 
furniture was handsome, but stiff and heavy; the 
books were few; and there were masses of silver 
plate on the sideboards of the large dining-rooms. 
The gentry carried swords, and dressed in the 
artificial, picturesque fashion of the English upper 
classes; whereas the commonalty went about 
their work in smocks or leather aprons. Near 
Trinity Church was the ' 'mall," or promenade for 
the fashionable set of the little colonial town. By 
an unwritten law none but the members of the 
ruling class used it ; and on fine afternoons it was 
filled with a gayly dressed throng of young men and 
pretty girls, the latter attended by their negro 

waiting-maids. Prominent in the crowd, were the 
8 



114 New York 

scarlet coats of the officers from the English regi- 
ments, constantly quartered in New York because 
of the recurring French wars. The owners of 
these coats moved with an air of easy metropolitan 
superiority, a certain insolently patronizing con- 
descension, which always awakened both the ad- 
miration and the jealous anger of the provincial 
aristocrats/ The leading colonial families stood 
on the same social plane with the English country 
gentlemen of wealth, and were often connected 
by marriage with the English nobility; but they 
could never forget — and were never permitted by 
their English friends to forget — that after all they 
were nothing but provincials, and that provincials 
could not stand quite on an equality with the old- 
world people. 

The New York gentry, both of town and coun- 

^ European travelers naturally enough often failed to under- 
stand the aristocratic constitution of the New York social and 
governmental systems. The local aristocrats seemed to them 
uncouth and provincial; they were vStruck by the fact that 
they were often engaged in trade or other occupations which 
gentlemen were forbidden to enter by the European social 
code; and they saw that it was, of course, much easier than 
in the Old World for a man of energy to rise from the lowest 
to the highest round of the social ladder, no matter what his 
origin was. The aristocracy existed nevertheless. So to a 
London noble, Squire Western seemed only a boor, and he 
cordially hated all lords in return; yet Squire Western and 
his fellows formed at home a true oligarchy. And the con- 
stitution of the rude country society in which he lived was as 
emphatically aristocratic as was that of the capital of England- 



Closing of Colonial Period 115 

try, were fond of horse-racing, and kept many well- 
bred horses. They drove out in chariots or huge 
clumsy coaches with their coats of arms blazoned 
on the panels, — the ship of the Livingstons, the 
lance of the De Lanceys, the burning castle of the 
Morrises, and the other armorial bearings of the 
families of note being known to all men through- 
out the province. On a journey the gentry either 
went by water in their own sloops or else in these 
coaches, with liveried postilions and outriders; 
and when one of the manorial lords came to town, 
his approach always caused much excitement, the 
negroes, children, and white work-people gather- 
ing to gaze at the lumbering, handsomely painted 
coach, drawn by four huge Flemish horses, the 
owner sitting inside with powdered wig and cocked 
hat, scarlet or somber velvet coat, and silver- 
hilted sword. In the town itself sedan chairs were 
in common use. There was a little theater where 
performances were given, now by a company of 
professional actors, and again by the officers of the 
garrison regiments ; and to these performances as 
well as to the balls and other merrymakings the 
ladies sometimes went in chariots or sedan chairs, 
and sometimes on their own daintily shod feet. 
The people of note usually sent their negro ser- 
vants, each dressed in the livery of his master, in 
advance to secure good seats. There was much 
dancing and frolicking, besides formal dinners and 



ii6 New York 

picnics ; sailing parties, and in winter skating par- 
ties and long sleigh rides were favorite amuse- 
ments ; all classes took part eagerly in the shooting 
matches. The dinners were rather heavy enter- 
tainments, with much solemn toast-drinking ; and 
they often ended with boisterous conviviality, — 
for most of the men drank hard, and prided them- 
selves on their wine cellars. Christmas and New 
Year's day were great festivals, the latter being 
observed in Dutch fashion, — the gentlemen calling 
at all the houses of their acquaintance, where they 
feasted and drank wine. Another Dutch festival 
of universal observance was Pinkster, held in the 
springtide. It grew to be especially the negroes' 
day, all of the blacks of the city and neighboring 
country gathering to celebrate it. There was a 
great fair, with merrymaking and games of all 
kinds on the Common, where the City Hall park 
now is ; while the whites also assembled to look on, 
and sometimes to take part in the iun. Most of 
the house servants were negro slaves. 

The people of means sometimes had their chil- 
dren educated at home, and sometimes sent them 
to the little colleges which have since become 
Columbia and Princeton, — colleges which were 
then inferior to a good English grammar school. 
Occasionally the very wealthy and ambitious sent 
their boys to Oxford or Cambridge, where the 
improved opportunities for learning were far more 



Closing of Colonial Period 117 

than counterbalanced by the fact that the boy 
was Ukely to come back much less fitted than his 
home-staying brother to play a man's part in the 
actual work of American life. The true colonial 
habit of thought, the deference for whatever came 
from the home country, whether rank or title, 
fashion or learning, was nearly universal, although 
the bolder and more independent spirits were al- 
ready beginning to assume an attitude of protest 
against it. In truth it was very easy to get opin- 
ions ready-made from the Old World, while it was 
hard work to fashion them out originally from the 
raw material ready at hand in the New. New 
Yorkers had as yet been given little opportimity 
for deep thought or weighty action. Provincial 
politics offered but a cramped and narrow field for 
vigorous intellects ; and to the native New Yorker, 
war held no higher possibilities than the leadership 
in a dashing foray against the Canadians and 
Indians, or the captaincy in a successful cruise 
among French and Spanish merchantmen. There 
was no home literature worthy of the name, and 
little chance for its immediate development; and 
art was not much better off. 

The New York merchants and smaller landed 
proprietors stood next to the great manorial fami- 
lies; they mixed with them socially, and often 
married among them, following their lead in mat- 
ters political. The merchants lived in comfortable 



n8 New York 

brick or stone houses, and owned large ware- 
houses and stores of every description. Many of 
them had great gardens round their homes; for 
New York was still but a little country town. 
Nevertheless, as the years went by, its growth, 
sluggish at first, became more and more rapid. 
Coffee-houses were started; there were good inns 
for the wealthy, and taverns for the poorer; and 
there were schools, a poorhouse, and a jail. 

Next to the merchants came the middle class, — 
the small freeholders with whom the suffrage 
stopped short. They were the rank and file of the 
voters, and in political contests generally followed 
the banner of one or the other of the great families, 
from whom they were separated by a deep social 
gulf. Then came the class of free workmen ; and 
below these, — though as years went by, merging 
into them, — the very distinct class of unfree 
whites, the imported bond-servants, redemption- 
ers, apprentices, and convicts, who had been sent 
to the colonies. These were by no means all crim- 
inals and paupers, though very many such were 
included among them. Some were honest, poor 
men, who could not get a living at home, and had 
no money wherewith to go abroad ; and these were 
regularly sold for a term of years to make good 
their passage money. They were of many na- 
tionalities, — English, Irish, and Germans predom- 
inating, though there were some Scotch, Welsh, 



Closing of Colonial Period 119 

and Swiss. On the arrival of a ship containing 
them, they were usually duly advertised, the 
occupation — as tradesman, farmer, or laborer — 
for which they were best fitted being specified, and 
were then immediately sold at auction into what 
was simply slavery for a limited period; and as 
they were sometimes harshly treated they were 
very prone to run away. Judging by the adver- 
tisements in the colonial newspapers the runaway 
white bond-servants were almost as numerous as 
the runaway slaves. After their term of service 
was over, some of them became honest, hard- 
working citizens, while the others swelled the 
ranks of the idle, vicious, semi-criminal class, clus- 
tering in the outskirts and alleys of the town. As 
a whole, this species of immigrant was very harm- 
ful, and added a most undesirable element to the 
population. It may well be doubted if relatively 
to our total numbers, we have had any class of 
immigrants during the present century which as a 
class was so bad ; and indeed it is safe to say that 
in proportion, eighteenth-century New York had 
quite as much vice and vicious poverty within its 
limits as the present huge city; and most of the 
vice and poverty among the whites was due to this 
importation of bond-servants and convicts. 

The negro slaves formed a very large portion of 
the town's population, — at times nearly half, — 
for over a century after it was founded ; then they 



I20 New York 

gradually began to dwindle in numbers compared 
to the whites, for although they were retained as 
household servants, it was found that they were 
not fitted for manual and agricultural labor, as in 
the southern colonies. During the first half of the 
eighteenth century they were still very numerous, 
and were for the most part of African birth, being 
fresh from the holds of the Guinea slavers; they 
were brutal, ignorant savages, and the whites were 
in constant dread of a servile insurrection. In 
1 71 2 this fear was justified, at least partially, for 
in that year the slaves formed a wild, foolish plot 
to destroy all the whites ; and some forty of them 
attempted to put it into execution. Armed with 
every kind of weapon, they met at midnight in an 
orchard on the outskirts of the town, set fire to a 
shed, and assaulted those who came running up to 
quell the flames. In this way they killed nine 
men and woimded some others, before the alarm 
was given and the soldiers from the fort approach- 
ing, put them to flight. They fled to the forests 
in the northern part of the island ; but the militia, 
roused to furious anger, put sentries at the fords, 
and then hunted down the renegade negroes like 
wild beasts. Six, in their despair, slew them- 
selves; and twenty-one of those who were cap- 
tured were shot, hung, or burned at the stake. 

This attempted revolt greatly increased the un- 
easiness of the white inhabitants, and was largely 



Closine of Colonial Period 121 



'fe 



responsible for the ferocious panic of fear, rage, 

and suspicion into which they were thrown by the 
discovery of another plot among the negroes in 
1 741. During this panic the citizens went almost 
mad with cruel terror, and did deeds which make 
a dark stain on the pages of New York's history, — 
deeds which almost parallel those done in the evil 
days of the Salem witchcraft persecutions, save 
that in the New York case there really was some 
ground for the anger and resentment of the per- 
secutors. Exactly how much ground there was, 
however, it is impossible to say. There is no 
doubt that many of the slaves, especially among 
those of African birth, were always vaguely hoping 
for, and perhaps planning for, the destruction of 
their masters, and that some of the bolder and 
more brutal spirits did actually indulge in furtive 
incendiarism, outrage, and attempted murder; 
but there is no reason to suppose that the great 
mass of the blacks were ever engaged in the plot, 
or that there was ever any real danger of a 
general outbreak. Slave-owners, however, live 
always under the hair-hung sword; they know 
that they can take no risks, and that their very 
existence depends on the merciless suppression of 
every symptom of hostile discontent. 

During March, 1741, there broke out in New 
York so many fires in quick succession, that it 
seemed certain they were of incendiary origin ; and 



122 



New York 



the conduct of a few of the slaves greatly excited 
the suspicions of the citizens. At the same time 
the indented servant-girl of a low tavern-keeper 
had been arrested, together with her master and 
mistress and two negroes, for complicity in a rob- 
bery. Proclamations offering rewards to whom- 
ever would give information concerning the sup- 
posed plot were read to her, and she suddenly 
professed herself aware of its existence. She as- 
serted that her master and mistress and a number 
of the poor, semi-criminal whites, together with a 
multitude of blacks, were all engaged therein ; and 
many of the ignorant slaves when arrested strove 
in their terror to save their own necks by corrob- 
orating and embellishing all the wild statements 
she made. The whole of New York went into a 
mad panic, and scores of people were imprisoned 
and put to death on the strength of these flimsy 
accusations. Fourteen negroes were burned at 
the stake, twenty hanged, and seventy-one trans- 
ported ; while of the twenty whites who were im- 
prisoned, four were executed. Among the latter 
was a Catholic priest named Ury, who was con- 
demned both for complicity in the negro plot to 
burn the town, and for having committed the 
heinous crime of administering the rites of his re- 
ligion; and on the double count, although as far 
as appears without a shred of damaging evidence 
being produced against him, the unfortunate man 



Closing of Colonial Period 123 

was actually hung, protesting his innocence to the 
last/ This added the touch of cruel religious 
bigotry which alone was wanting to complete the 
gloom of the picture. At last, glutted with vic- 
tims, the panic subsided, leaving behind it the 
darkest page in our annals. 

Besides this tragedy, the political struggles of 
colonial New York in the eighteenth century seem 
of small importance; yet there was one incident 
worthy of note, because it involved the freedom 
of the press. The first newspaper published in the 
city was a small weekly, started in 1725, under the 
name of the New York Gazette. It was the 
organ of the governor and aristocratic or court 
party. Nine years later a rival appeared in the 
shape of the Weekly Journal edited by a Ger- 
man immigrant named Zenger, and from the start 
avowedly the organ of the popular party. The 
royal governor at the time was a very foolish per- 
son named Cosby, appointed on the theory which 
then obtained, to the effect that a colonial gov- 
ernorship was to be used as a place for pensioning 
off any court favorite otherwise unprovided for, 
without reference to the result of his appointment 
upon the colony. He possessed a genius for petty 
oppression, which marked him for the especial 
hatred of the people. Zenger published a con- 

^ It is barely possible that Ury was a non-juring Episco- 
palian priest instead of a Catholic. 



124 New York 

stant succession of lampoons, ballads, and attacks 
on all the Crown officials, the governing class, and 
finally even on Cosby himself. He was arrested 
and thrown into jail on the charge of libel; and 
the trial, which occupied most of the summer of 
1735, attracted great attention. The chief -jus- 
tice at the time was one of the Morrises, who be- 
longed to the popular party; and as he was sus- 
pected of leaning to Zenger's side, he was turned 
out of office and replaced by one of the De Lan- 
ceys, the stoutest upholders of the Crown. De 
Lancey went to the length of disbarring Zenger's 
lawyers, so that he had to be defended by one 
imported from Philadelphia. But the people at 
large made Zenger's cause their own, and stood by 
him resolutely; while every ounce of possible 
pressure and influence from the Crown officials 
was brought to bear against him. The defense 
was that the statements asserted to be libellous 
were true. The attorney-general for the Crown 
took the ground that if true the libel was only so 
much the greater. The judges instructed the jury 
that this was the law ; but the jury refused to be 
bound, and acquitted Zenger. The acquittal, 
which definitely secured the complete liberty of 
the press, was hailed with clamorous joy by the 
mass of the population ; and it gave an immense 
impetus to the growth of the spirit of independ- 
ence. From this time on, the two parties were 



Closing of Colonial Period 125 

much more sharply defined than before. The 
court party, the faction of the Crown officials and 
of the bulk of the local aristocracy, included most 
of the Episcopalians and many of the Hollanders 
and Huguenots, while the rest of the population, 
including the Presbyterians, formed the popular 
party. The former often styled themselves To- 
ries, and the latter Whigs, in imitation of the two 
English parties. Each faction was under the 
leadership of a number of the great landed fami- 
lies ; for even in the ranks of the popular party the 
voters still paid reverence to the rich and powerful 
manorial lords. These great families were all 
connected by marriage, and were all spHt up by 
bitter feuds and political jealousies. The De 
Lanceys held the headship of the court, and the 
Livingstons of the popular party ; and the contest 
took on so strongly personal a color that these two 
families almost gave their names to the factions 
with which they were respectively identified as 
leaders. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE UNREST BEFORE THE REVOLUTION, 1 764-1 7 74. 

NO sooner was the long succession of French 
wars closed by the conquest of Canada, 
than American history entered on a new 
stage. Hitherto the contests had been waged 
between European powers for the possession of the 
various colonies, both the interests and the efforts 
of these colonies being of secondary importance. 
From this time on, however, the American settle- 
ments became themselves the chief factors in 
solving the problems of their own future, and the 
questions of policy hinged on the issues between 
them and the mother coimtry. 

The colonial system, which at this time was 
common to all seafaring European nations, was 
essentially vicious, and could not possibly last 
when the colonies grew in strength. England did 
not treat her colonies exceptionally ill; on the 
contrary, she behaved much better toward them 
than the other European nations of that day did 
to theirs. If she had not done so, the revolt 
against her power would have come far sooner; 
for no other nation had planted beyond the seas 
such a race of freemen as was growing up on the 

North Atlantic coast of America. They came 

126 



Before the Revolution 127 

from a people long accustomed to a considerable 
measure of liberty, and all their surroundings in 
their new home tended to foster an independent 
and self-reliant spirit. They would not have tol- 
erated a despotism Hke that of France or Spain 
for a day ; and it was inevitable that they would 
eventually try to throw off even England's milder 
yoke, unless she adopted a course of colonial policy 
which was at that time understood by none but 
the most far-seeing or lofty-minded. Nor, indeed, 
is it certain that the colonists themselves, split up 
as they were by their province lines into jarring 
fragments, would have been capable of appreciat- 
ing and profiting by such a course of colonial pol- 
icy, even had the mother cotmtry adopted it. 

The European theory of a colony was that it 
was planted by the home government for the bene- 
fit of the home government and home people, not 
for the benefit of the colonists themselves. Hardly 
any one grasped the grandeur of the movement by 
which the English-speaking race was to spread 
over the world's waste spaces, until a fourth of the 
habitable globe was in its hands, and until it became 
the mightiest race on which the sun has ever shone. 
Those in power did not think of the spread of a 
mighty people, and of its growth by leaps and 
boimds, but of the planting of new trading-posts ; 
they did not realize the elementary fact that if the 
men who stretch abroad the race limits by settle- 



128 New York 

ment and conquest are to be kept one with those 
who stay at home, they must be granted an equal 
share with the latter in administering the common 
government. The colony was held to be the prop- 
erty of the mother country, — property to be pro- 
tected and well treated as a whole, but property 
nevertheless. Naturally the colonist himself was 
likewise held to occupy a similar position com- 
pared to the citizen of the home country. The 
Englishman felt himself to be the ruler and su- 
perior of the American ; and even though he tried 
to rule wisely, and meant to act well toward the 
colonists, the fact remained that he considered 
them his inferiors, and that his scheme of govern- 
ment distinctly recognized them as such. The 
mere existence of such a feeling, and its embodi- 
ment in the governmental system, warranted a 
high-spirited people in revolting against it. 

Of coiu"se the colonists on their part did much 
that was blamable also. They would rarely make 
any sustained effort to help themselves if they 
could persuade England to make it for them. 
They knew she warred for their interest because it 
was her interest to do so; and they were glad to 
throw on her shoulders as much as possible of the 
burden of their defense. The colonial armies per- 
formed some notable feats of warfare; and for a 
short campaign the colonies were always willing 
to furnish thousands of stout and vigorous though 



Before the Revolution 129 

ill-disciplined soldiers. But they hated to pay 
their bills; they would never make provision for 
any sustained effort, nor carry through any far- 
reaching policy ; they were impatient of restraint ; 
and they wrangled perpetually among themselves. 
As a result, their parsimony, greed, and selfish- 
ness, and their jealousy of one another, caused 
them at times — in spite of some heroic actions — to 
cut but sorry figures in the struggles with France. 
They swindled and overcharged the very troops 
sent out to protect them; and their legislatures 
could with difficulty be persuaded to vote suf- 
ficient money to prosecute the wars with proper 
vigor. New York was vitally interested in seeing 
Canada cowed and the French intrigues among 
the Indians definitely stopped ; yet the New York 
Assembly insisted that the whole expense of the 
conquest of Canada ought to come on the mother 
country. New England looked on unmoved when 
the French merely raided on New York ; and New 
York sold arms to the savages who attacked New 
England. All the provinces were dependent on 
the British fleets for the defense of their open sea- 
board and widely scattered trade; but doubtless 
feeling that both trade and seaboard were men- 
aced by foes that were primarily foes to Britain, 
not to America, they evinced no inclination to do 
their share in paying for the navy to which they 
trusted. On the other hand, it must be said that 
9 



I30 New York 

the citizens were much readier with their Hves than 
their purses; and though they did not share the 
expense of England's fleets, they furnished in the 
last colonial war nearly twenty thousand of the 
seamen who manned them. 

However, admitting all that can be urged 
against them does not alter the fact — by none 
more freely conceded than by English historians 
nowadays — that on the main question the muti- 
nous provinces were in the right. They were in 
many ways well treated, but they were never 
treated as equals, and they were sometimes treated 
badly. They needed and wished, not mingled 
favors and injuries, but justice. There were 
many public men in England who strove to do 
right by the colonies; but there were very many 
others who looked on their dependencies purely 
from the standpoint of British interest. When in 
the warfare of factions and parties the latter 
wielded the power of government, they were cer- 
tain to produce such intense irritation in the minds 
of Americans that even the non-fulfilment of their 
plans or the return of the friends of America to 
power, could not allay the ill feeling. There were 
numerous English statesmen of high rank and 
great influence who avowedly wished to check and 
hamper the growth of the colonies; who desired 
to stop the westward march of the settlers, and to 
keep the continent beyond the Alleghanies as a 



Before the Revolution 131 

hunting-ground whereon savages might gather 
furs for British traders ; who forbade the building 
up of American manufactures, and strove to keep 
the seaboard towns as trading-posts for the sole 
benefit of British merchants. The existence of 
such statesmen, and the ever-recurring probabiHty 
of their taking the control of affairs, rendered it 
impossible for Americans to retain their loyalty 
to the home government. It is hard at the pres- 
ent time to realize how totally the theories of colo- 
nization and of colonial possessions have changed ; 
and it was our own Revolution, and the struggles 
which followed in its train that changed them. 
It is owing to the success of the United States that 
Australia and Canada of to-day are practically 
independent countries as regards their internal 
concerns and their external relations with other 
nations in time of peace. The fiercest reactionary 
in Britain would not now dream of asking Aus- 
tralians and Canadians to submit to regulations to 
which even the most truculent American patriot 
never thought of objecting before the Revolution. 
For the colonists were so used to the yoke that 
though they grew restless under it, they only 
dumbly knew it galled them, and could not tell 
exactly where. They submitted quietly to some 
forms of oppression which really amounted to 
heavy indirect taxation in the interest of British 
merchants and manufacturers, and then revolted 



132 New York 

at a very small direct impost, on the ground that 
there should be no taxation without represen- 
tation; and all the while they were objecting al- 
most as strenuously to paying their share of cer- 
tain perfectly proper expenditures undertaken in 
their interest by the home country. The truth 
was that they were revolting against the whole 
system, which they dimly felt to be wrong before 
they were able to formulate their reasons for so 
feeling ; the particular acts of oppression of which 
they complained were the occasions rather than 
the causes of the outbreak. The reasons for dis- 
content had existed for many years, and their 
growth kept steady pace with the growth of the 
colonies. The French and Spanish wars had kept 
them in the backgroimd, all other matters being 
swallowed up by the stress of the struggle with the 
common enemy ; but as soon as Canada was con- 
quered, and the outside pressure taken off, the 
questions between the mother country and the 
colonies became of the first importance, and speed- 
ily showed signs of producing an open rupture. 

In truth, the rupture was as beneficial as it was 
necessary, — always assuming that the alternative 
was the continuance of the old colonial system. 
Had England's King and Parliament been guided 
by the most far-seeing statesman, and had causes 
of irritation been avoided, and a constantly in- 
creasing measure of liberty and participation in 



Before the Revolution 133 

the government allowed the colonists, it may have 
been that the empire would have been kept to- 
gether. The revolt of America was not one of 
those historic events which are inevitable and 
foreordained, and in no way to be averted ; wise 
statesmanship, and a temper in the British people 
willing to correspond, might have prevented it. 
But as the conditions actually were, it was a bene- 
fit. The acceptance, by both sides, of the theory 
of the supremacy of the mother country was quite 
enough to dwarf the intellectual and moral growth 
of the colonies. The "colonial" habit of thought 
is a very unfortunate one. The deferential mental 
attitude toward all things connected with the old 
cotmtry, whether good or bad, merely because 
they are connected with the old country, is in- 
compatible with free and healthy development. 
No colonist will ever do good original work so long 
as he thinks of the old country as "home." The 
mere fact that he so thinks, prevents his reaching 
the first rank as an American or Canadian or Aus- 
tralian, as the case may be, and yet entirely fails 
to make him even a second-rate Englishman. If 
the men who stay at home and the men who settle 
new lands can continue members of the same na- 
tion, on a footing of perfect equality, this is the 
best possible outcome of the situation; and the 
highest task of statesmen is to work out some such 
solution. But if one party must remain inferior 



134 New York 

to the other, it is in the end better that they should 
separate, great though the evils of separation be. 
It is of incalculable advantage to Oregon and 
Texas, no less than to New York and Virginia, to 
be members of the mighty Federal Union; but 
this is because the citizens of all four States stand 
on precisely the same footing. If Texas and Ore- 
gon were not given the full rights of the original 
thirteen commonwealths, freely and without the 
least reserve, it would be better for them to stand 
alone. But in reality we have become so accus- 
tomed to the new system that we do not conceive 
of the possibility of any failure to grant such 
rights. The feeling of equality among the differ- 
ent commonwealths is genuine and universal. 
The difference in their ages never occurs to any 
one as furnishing a ground for a feeling of superior- 
ity or the reverse ; it does not enter at all into the 
jealousies between the different States or sections. 
The fact that the new communities are offshoots 
of the old is never taken into account in any way 
whatever. This feeling now seems to us part of 
the order of Nature ; and its very universality is 
apt to blind us to the immense importance of the 
struggle by which it was firmly established as a 
principle. Until the Revolution, it may almost 
be said to have had no recognized existence at all. 
In every colony outside of New England and 
Virginia there was a large Tory party; and 



Before the Revolution 135 

nowhere was it relatively larger than in New York. 
The peculiarly aristocratic structure of New York 
society had a very great effect upon the revo- 
lutionary movement, which took on a twofold 
character, being a struggle for America against 
England on the one hand, and an uprising of the 
democracy against the local oligarchy on the other. 
The lowest classes of the population cared but 
little for the principles of either party ; and sided 
with one or the other accordingly as their tem- 
porary interests or local feuds and jealousies in- 
fluenced them. They furnished to both Whigs 
and Tories the scoundrels who hung in the wake 
of the organized armies, hot for plunder and mur- 
der, — the marauders who carried on a ferocious 
predatory warfare between the lines or on the 
Indian frontier, and who took advantage of the 
general disorder to wreak their private spites and 
rob and outrage the timid, well-to-do people of 
both sides, with impartial brutality. A large 
number of the citizens, possibly nearly half, were 
but lukewarm adherents of either cause. Among 
them were many of the men of means, who were 
anxious to side with the winners, and feared much 
to lose their possessions, and a still greater number 
of men who were too indifferent and cold-hearted, 
too deficient in patriotism and political morality to 
care how the affair was decided. Among them were 
many men also who were of ultra-conservative 



136 New York 

mind, not yet far enough advanced in that 
difficult school which teaches how to combine a 
high standard of personal liberty with a high 
standard of public order. The bulk of the 
intelligent working-classes, the most truly Ameri- 
can members of the colonial body politic, formed 
also the bulk of the popular party. Here also all 
the Presbyterians and the majority of the mem- 
bers of the Dutch Reformed and Huguenot con- 
gregations naturally found their proper place. 
Very many of the gentry also belonged to it ; and 
it was led by some of the great families, — the 
Livingstons, Schuylers, and others, — including 
all those whose pride of caste was offset by their 
belief in freedom, or was overcome by their pro- 
found Americanism, when caste and country came 
into conflict. Most of the Episcopalian clergy 
and the majority of their flocks, as well as a mi- 
nority of the Dutch Reformed congregations, 
belonged to the court party, as did the greater 
portion of the local aristocracy, led by the De 
Lanceys, De Peysters, and Philippses, and by 
the Johnsons, who ruled the Mohawk Valley in 
half -savage, half -feudal state. 

Of course the lines between these various classes 
were not drawn sharply at the outset. In the 
beginning very few, even of the most violent ex- 
tremists among the Whigs dared to hint at inde- 
pendence ; while scarcely any of the most bigoted 



Before the Revolution 137 

Tories upheld the Crown and the Parhament in all 
their doings. The power lay in the hands of the 
moderate men, who did not wish for extreme 
measures, until the repeated blunders and aggres- 
sions of the king and his advisers exasperated the 
people at large beyond the possibility of restraint. 
The ablest and purest leaders of the New York 
patriots during the Revolution — men like Schuy- 
ler, Jay, Morris, and Hamilton — disliked mob- 
violence as much as they hated tyranny, and felt 
no sympathy with the extremists of their own 
party. An English statesman like Chatham, or 
an English statesman like Walpole, might have 
held these men, and therefore the American colo- 
nies, to their allegiance. But the necessary 
breadth and liberality were lacking, possibly in 
the temper of the age itself, certainly in the temper 
of King George and his ministers. They perse- 
vered in their course, offering concessions only 
when the time they would have been accepted was 
past. Then the break came, and the moderate 
men had to choose the side with which they wished 
to range themselves; and after some misgivings 
most of them — and the best of them — put love 
of their country above loyalty to their king, and 
threw in their lot -with the revolutionary party. 
However, not a few of the leading families divided, 
sending sons into both camps. 

When in 1765 the Stamp Act was passed by the 



138 New York 

British Parliament, the popular party held the 
control of the New York legislature. Accordingly 
among all the colonial legislatures New York's 
stood foremost in stout assertion of the right of the 
colonies to the full enjoyment of liberty, and in 
protest against taxation without representation. 
The New York newspapers were especially fervid 
in denouncing the law, while the legislature ap- 
pointed a committee to correspond concerning the 
subject with the legislative bodies of the other 
colonies. Finally the Stamp Act Congress met 
in New York, nine of the thirteen colonies being 
represented, and voted a Declaration of Rights 
and an Address to the King. But the people them- 
selves, acting through the suddenly raised, and 
often secret or semi-secret, organizations, took 
more effective measures of protest than either 
congress or legislature. The most influential of 
these societies was that styled the "Sons of Lib- 
erty"; all of them were raised in the first place 
with an excellent purpose, and numbered in their 
ranks many stanch and wise patriots, but like all 
such organizations they tended to pass under the 
control of men whose violence better fitted them 
to raise mobs than to carry through a great revo- 
lution. 

The arrival in New York of the first ship bearing 
a cargo of the hated stamps produced intense ex- 
citement. The merchants met in a tavern and 



Before the Revolution 139 

signed a non-importation agreement, in order to 
retaliate on the British merchants and manufac- 
turers. The mob incHned to rougher measures; 
colonial New York was always a turbulent little 
town, thanks especially to the large number of 
seafaring folk among its inhabitants. The sailors 
had an especial antipathy to the soldiers of the 
garrison, and rows between them were frequent; 
with more reason, they hated the press-gangs of 
the British frigates, and often interfered to save 
their victims, with the result of producing actual 
riots, wherein bludgeons and cutlasses were freely 
used. This known turbulence of the townsfolk 
alarmed both the acting governor, Golden, — a 
loyal, obstinate, narrow-minded man — and the 
commander of the troops in garrison, General 
Gage. As the time for putting the Stamp Act in 
force drew near, the governor took refuge in the 
fort on the south end of Manhattan Island, which 
was ostentatiously put in good condition, while 
the troops were made ready for instant action. It 
was hoped that these open preparations would 
awe the city ; but they produced only irritation. 

The act was to go into effect on November i, 
and the ship carrying the stamps hove in sight on 
October 23. A couple of war vessels escorted it to 
a safe anchorage under the guns of the fort, while 
the flags on the shipping in the harbor were half- 
masted as a sign of grief and defiance, and a huge 



140 New York 

crowd of New Yorkers gathered on the wharves 
with every sign of rebelhous anger. In the night, 
placards signed "Vox Popuh" and "We dare" were 
posted all over town, threatening the persons and 
property of whoever dared use the stamps; and 
the feeling was so violent and universal that not 
even the boldest attempted to meddle with the 
forbidden paper, November i was ushered in by 
the tolling of muffled bells ; in the evening a crowd 
gathered, under the lead of a band of the Sons of 
Liberty. The radical men were in control ; and 
after some inflammatory speech-making the gov- 
ernor was hung in effigy on the common. Not 
satisfied with this, the crowd marched down to the 
fort, headed by a sailor carrying another effigy of 
the governor in a chair on his head ; and this they 
proceeded to bum on the Bowling Green, under 
the guns of the fort, hammering at the gates of the 
latter and yelling defiance at the garrison. By 
this time they had gotten past all control, and not 
only broke into the governor's stable and burned 
his chariot, but also sacked the house of the major 
of one of the garrison regiments, a man whom 
they regarded as particularly obnoxious. Other 
houses were also attacked. 

The moderate men, including all the leaders who 
afterward, when the real strain came, showed gen- 
uine ability, utterly disapproved of this mob-vio- 
lence and lawlessness; and by their energetic 



Before the Revolution 141 

conduct they succeeded in staving off for the 
moment further action by the mob, which was 
much emboldened by the lack of resistance. Soon, 
however, the populace became once more worked 
up to the pitch of violence by the taunts and ha- 
rangues of the radical leaders, — hot-headed men 
of small capacity and much energy, part patriot 
and part demagogue. They threatened to assault 
the fort ; and the mayor and aldermen, to prevent 
civil war, earnestly besought the governor to give 
them the stamps for safe keeping. The humili- 
ation of such a course was at first too much for the 
governor; but neither he nor the commander-in- 
chief, General Gage, possessed the iron temper 
fitted to grapple with such an emergency. After 
some delay they yielded, and surrendered the 
stamps to the municipal authorities, while the 
people at large celebrated their victory with wild 
enthusiasm, and felt a natural contempt for the 
government they had overcome. The tyranny 
which imposes an unjust law, and then abandons 
the effort to enforce it for fear of mob-violence is 
thoroughly despicable. The least respectable 
form of oppression is that which is constantly 
miscalculating its own powers, and is never quite 
able to make iip its own mind. 

However, the repeal of the Stamp Act pro- 
duced such universal satisfaction in America 
that all outward signs of disloyalty to the Crown 



142 New York 

disappeared completely. New York received a 
new governor who behaved with such wisdom and 
moderation, and showed such a conciliatory dis- 
position, that the royalist or court party revived 
in full strength. In the struggle over the legis- 
lative elections of 1768, they won a complete vic- 
tory, led by the De Lanceys, — the Livingston or 
popular party being in a decided minority in the 
Assembly. It was this legislature, elected in the 
moment of reaction, that was in session when the 
Revolution broke out ; and it lagged so far behind 
the temper of the people that it was finally set 
aside, and the initial work of the Revolutionary 
government committed to various improvised 
bodies. 

In their joy over the repeal of the Stamp Act the 
citizens erected a monument to King George, — 
which the American soldiers pulled down in the 
early days of the Revolution, receiving in conse- 
quence a severe rebuke from Washington, who 
heartily despised such exhibitions of childish spite. 

Even during these years of comparative loyalty, 
however, there was plenty of unrest and disturb- 
ance. There was perpetual wrangling over the 
Billeting Act, by which Parliament strove to force 
the colonists to pay for the troops quartered in 
their midst; an act concerning which there was 
something to be said on both sides. If England 
was to assume the burden of the common defense, 



Before the Revolution 143 

she had to quarter her troops in the colonial towns, 
and it seemed fair that the colonists should pay for 
their quarters. On the other hand, if the colonists 
were not consulted in the matter, and if they were 
forced to pay for troops sent among them in time 
of peace, when no foreign enemy was to be feared, 
it looked much as if they were being made to sup- 
port the very force that was to keep them in sub- 
jection. On the whole, the colonists were right in 
objecting to the presence of the troops in time of 
peace except on their own terms; although they 
thereby estopped themselves from insisting that 
the mother coimtry should do more than its share 
in protecting them in time of war. If, of two par- 
ties, one raises the army for common defense, the 
other cannot expect to have much to say about its 
disposal. 

The British troops in garrison naturally dis- 
liked the townsfolk, on whom in turn their mere 
presence acted as an irritant. The soldiers when 
out of barracks and away from the control of their 
officers were always coming into collision with the 
mob, in which the seafaring element was strong; 
and the resulting riots not infrequently involved 
also the respectable mechanics and small traders, 
and even the merchants and gentry. The great 
source of quarrel was the liberty pole. This had 
been erected on the anniversary of the king's birth, 
Jime 6, 1766, to celebrate the repeal of the Stamp 



144 New York 

Act ; there was a great barbecue on the occasion, — 
an ox being roasted whole on the common, — 
while hogsheads of punch and ale were broached, 
bonfires were lit, and amid the booming of cannon 
and pealing of bells a flag was hoisted with the 
inscription, "The King, Pitt, and Liberty," — the 
colonists being enthusiastically devoted to their 
two great parliamentary champions, Pitt and 
Burke. 

The liberty pole was an eyesore to the soldiers in 
the fort, and its destruction or attempted destruc- 
tion became one of their standing pastimes. Sev- 
eral times they succeeded, usually when they sal- 
lied out at night; and then the liberty pole was 
chopped down or burnt up. The townsfolk, 
headed by the Sons of Liberty, always gathered 
to the rescue. If too late to save the pole, they 
put up another one, and stood guard over it; if in 
time to attempt a rescue, a bloody riot followed. 
In the latter part of January, 1770, parties of 
soldiers and townsfolk fought a series of pitched 
battles in the streets, the riot lasting for two days. 
It began by a successful surprise on the part of the 
soldiers, who cut down the pole early one morning. 
The townsfolk held an indignation meeting and 
denoimced vengeance on the soldiers, who retal- 
iated by posting derisive placards on the walls of 
the fort and public buildings. A series of skir- 
mishes ensued in which heads were broken, and 



Before the Revolution 145 

men cut and stabbed, — the soldiers being usually 
overcome by numbers, all of the working-men and 
every sailor in town swarming out to assail the 
redcoats. Some of the hardest fighting occurred 
when a troop of soldiers attacked a number of 
sailors, who were rescued by some of the Liberty 
Boys who had been playing ball on the Common. 
Several persons were badly injured, and in one 
scuffle a sailor was thrust through with a bayonet, 
and slain; after which his comrades, armed with 
bludgeons, drubbed the soldiers into their bar- 
racks. The upshot was that the townsfolk were 
victorious, and the liberty pole was not again mo- 
lested. 

This was the first bloodshed in the struggle 
which culminated in the Revolution. It occurred 
six weeks before the so-called ' 'Boston Massacre," 
— an incident of the same kind, in which, however, 
the Americans were much less clearly in the right 
than they were in the New York case. Even in 
New York the soldiers had doubtless been sorely 
provoked by the taunts and jeers of the towns- 
men ; but there was absolutely no justification for 
their cutting down the liberty pole, and the New 
Yorkers were perfectly right in refusing to submit 
tamely to such an outrage. 

The chief fault seems to have lain with the gar- 
rison officers, who should have kept their men 
imder restraint, or else have taken immediate 
10 



146 New York 

steps to remedy the wrong they did in cutting 
down the pole. 

This rioting however produced no more than 
local irritation. After the repeal of the Stamp 
Act, the colonies were not again stirred by a com- 
mon emotion imtil the passage by Parliament of 
the Tea Act, avowedly passed, and avowedly re- | 

sisted simply to test the principle of taxation. Its 
enactment was the signal for the Sons of Liberty 
and other societies — such as that of the Mohawks 
— to reorganize at once. In Philadelphia, New 
York, and Boston, the sentiment was imanimous 
that the tea shipped from England should be 
thrown overboard or shipped back; and Boston 
was the first to put the threat into execution. 
New York followed suit in April, 1774, when the 
first tea ships reached the harbor, only to be 
boarded by an excited multitude who heaved the 
tea-chests of one vessel into the harbor, and forced 
the other to stand out to sea without landing her 
cargo. 

The measures of retaliation against Boston 
taken by the British government, aroused in New 
York the liveliest sympathy for the New England- 
ers. The radical party, acting without any au- 
thority through a self-constituted Committee of 
Vigilance, began to correspond with the Boston 
extremists; and this gave alarm to the moderate 
men, who at once aroused themselves and took the 



Before the Revolution 147 

matter into their own hands, so as not to be com- 
promised by unwise and hasty action. Accord- 
ingly, to the chagrin of the extremists, they 
promptly disowned and repudiated the action of 
the vigilance committee. At the same time they 
thoroughly distrusted the zeal of their aristocratic 
legislature. They therefore convoked a meeting 
of the freeholders, who with due solemnity elected 
a Committee of Fifty-one to correspond with the 
other colonies. This committee was entirely in 
the hands of the moderate men, even containing 
in its ranks several Tories and very few of the radi- 
cals, and did a piece of work of which it is difficult 
to overestimate the importance ; for it was the 
first authoritatively to suggest the idea of holding 
the first Continental Congress. This suggestion 
is said to have been adopted by the advice of John 
Jay, a young lawyer of good Huguenot family. 
Under the auspices of the committee the freehold- 
ers chose five delegates to this congress, — includ- 
ing John Jay, and as a matter of course, one of the 
Livingstons also. The radicals and extremists, 
the Sons of Liberty and the old Committee of Vigi- 
lance, with the Committee of Mechanics — the body 
supposed to represent most nearly the unenfran- 
chised classes — were greatly discontented with the 
moderate measures of the Committee of Fifty -one ; 
and there was very nearly a rupture between the 
two wings of the patriot party. By mutual 



148 New York 

concessions this was averted ; and the delegates 
were elected without opposition. They took their 
full part in the acts of the first Continental Congress 
during its short session, the colony being thereby 
committed to the common cause. At the same 
time, when the Committee of Fifty-one went out 
of existence its place was taken by another, differ- 
ing in little more than the fact of having sixty 
members. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR. 1775-1783. 

THE year 1775 was for New York City one of 
great doubt and anxiety. All classes had 
united in sending delegates to the first Con- 
tinental Congress. The most ardent supporters 
of the Crown and Parliament were opposed to the 
Stamp Act and Tea Act, and were anxious to pro- 
test against them, and to try to bring about a more 
satisfactory understanding between the mother 
country and her colonies. On the other hand the 
popular party as yet shrank from independence. 
The men who thus early thought of separation 
from Britain were in a small and powerless minor- 
ity ; indeed, they were but a little knot of republi- 
can enthusiasts, who for several years had been 
accustomed at their drinking-bouts to toast the 
memory of the famous English regicides. 

With the summoning of the second Continental 
Congress this unity disappeared, as the Whigs and 
Tories began to drift in opposite ways, — the one 
party toward violent measures with separation in 
the background, the other toward reconciliation 
even at the cost of submission. A Tory mob tried 
to break up the meeting at which delegates to the 

second Congress were chosen, and were only 

149 



I50 New York 

driven off after a number of heads had been 
broken. 

New York still remained doubtful. In fact, all 
of the colonies outside of Virginia and New Eng- 
land — although containing strong patriot parties, 
animated by the most fiery zeal — were as a whole 
somewhat lukewarm in the Revolution, for they 
contained also large Tory, and still larger neutral 
elements in their midst. If left to themselves it 
is even doubtful if at this precise time they would 
have revolted; they were pushed into independ- 
ence by the Virginians and New Englanders. Not 
only was the Tory element in New York very 
large, but there was also a powerful body of Whigs 
— typified by Schuyler and Gouvemeur Morris — 
who furnished very able soldiers and statesmen 
when the actual fighting broke out, but who were 
thoroughly disgusted by the antics of the city 
mob; and though the major portion of this mob 
was rabidly anti- British as far as noise went, it 
was far more anxious to maltreat unhappy indi- 
vidual Tories than to provoke a life and death 
struggle with the troops and war-ships of the 
British king. Nor must it be forgotten that there 
were plenty of Tories in the mob itself, and these 
among the most abandoned and violent of the 
city's population. 

The provincial legislature was as a body actively 
loyal to the king. But, in spite of the presence of 



The Revolutionary War 151 

the large Tory and neutral elements, the revo- 
lutionary party was unquestionably in the lead 
among the people, and contained the most daring 
spirits and the loftiest minds of the colony. There 
is much to admire in the resolute devotion which 
many tens of thousands of LoyaUsts showed to the 
king, whose cause they made their own ; and there 
is much to condemn in the excesses committed by 
a portion of the popular party. Nevertheless, as 
in the great English civil war of the preceding cen- 
tury, the j)arty of liberty was the party of right. 
The purest and ablest New Yorkers were to be 
found in the ranks of the revolutionists ; for keen- 
eyed and right-thinking men saw that on the main 
issue justice was with the colonists. The yoimg 
men of ardent, generous temper, such as Alex- 
ander Hamilton, John Jay and Gouvemeur Morris, 
found it impossible to side with the foreign party. 
They were Americans, freemen, conscious that 
they deserved to stand on a level with the best of 
any land ; and they could not cast in their lot with 
the party which held as a cardinal point of its 
creed the doctrine of their inferiority. 

The mass of quiet, good, respectable people, of 
conservative instincts and rather dull feelings, 
might rest content with being treated as inferiors, 
if on the whole they were treated well; might 
submit to being always patronized and often 
bullied, if only they were protected; might feel 



152 New York 

they owed an honest debt of gratitude to their 
champions in former wars ; and might shrink from 
enduring the hundred actual evils of civil conflict 
merely for the sake of protesting against the vio- 
lation of certain abstract rights and principles; 
but the high-spirited young men, the leaders in 
thought and action, fixed with unerring certainty 
upon the central and vital truth of the situation. 
They saw that the struggle, when resolved into its 
ultimate elements, was to allow Americans the 
chance for full and free development, uncramped 
by the galling sense of admitted inferiority. The 
material benefits conferred by the continuance 
of British rule might or might not offset the 
material disadvantages it involved; but they 
could not weigh against the evils of a system 
which dwarfed the character and intellect, — a 
system which condemned all colonists to remain 
forever in the second rank, which forbade their 
striving for the world's great prizes, unless they 
renounced their American birthright, and which 
deprived them of those hopes that especially 
render life worth living in the eyes of the daring 
and ambitious. To their free, bold spirits, the 
mere assumption of their inferiority was an 
intolerable grievance, as indeed it has ever been 
esteemed by the master races of the world. 
Sooner than submit, in ignoble peace and safety, 
to an order of things which would have stimted 



The Revolutionary War 153 

the moral and mental growth of the coimtry, 
they were willing to risk not only the dangers of 
war with the British king, but the far worse dan- 
gers of disorder, violence, anarchy, and a general 
loosening of the social bonds among Americans 
themselves. The event proved their wisdom. 

Yet the dangers were very real and great. The 
country was still in the gristle ; the thews had not 
hardened. There had been much lawlessness, in 
one quarter and another, already; and the long 
struggle of the Revolution produced hideous dis- 
organization. It is impossible to paint in too dark 
colors the ferocity of the struggle between the 
Whigs and Tories; and the patriot mobs, either 
of their own accord or instigated by the Sons of 
Liberty and kindred bodies, often took part in 
proceedings which were thoroughly disgraceful. 
New York had her full share of these mob-out- 
breaks during the summer of 1775. The lawyers, 
pamphleteers, and newspaper writers, who con- 
tributed so largely to arouse the people, also too 
often joined to hound the populace on to the com- 
mittal of outrages. The mob broke into and 
plundered the houses of wealthy Loyalists, rode 
Tories on rails, or tarred, feathered, and otherwise 
brutally maltreated them, and utterly refused to 
allow to others the liberty of speech and thought 
they so vociferously demanded for themselves. 
They hated and threatened the Episcopahan, or 



154 New York 

Church of England, clergy, because of that part of 
the liturgy in which the king was prayed for ; and 
finally the Episcopalian churches had to be closed 
for fear of them. They drove off the Tory presi- 
dent of King's (now Columbia) College and joined 
with a Connecticut mob to wreck the office of the 
Loyalist newspaper. It is to their credit, how- 
ever, that there was little interference with the 
courts of justice. They did not come into colli- 
sion with the soldiers of the garrison, and the lat- 
ter were permitted to embark for Massachusetts 
Bay, where hostilities had fairly begim ; but they 
refused to allow any stores or mimitions of war to 
be shipped to the beleaguered garrison at Boston. 
There were frequent rows with the boats' crews 
of the frigates in the bay ; once with the result of a 
broadside being fired into the town by an affronted 
man-of-war. 

In spite of these disturbances, New York still 
remained reluctant to bum her boats, and throw 
in her lot once for all with the patriots. Both 
Washington, on his way to take command of the 
American army at Boston, and Tryon, the royal 
governor, were received with the same formal 
tokens of respect. Meanwhile business was at a 
standstill, and a third of the inhabitants had left 
the town. 

By the beginning of the year 1776 the real lead- 
ers of the city and province the men of mark, and 



The Revolutionary War 155 

of proved courage and capacity, saw that all hope 
of compromise was over. They had been dis- 
gusted with the turbulence of the mob, and the 
noisy bragging and threatening of its leaders, — for 
the most part frothy men, like Isaac Sears, who sank 
out of ken when the days of rioting passed, and the 
grim, weary, bloody years of fighting were ush- 
ered in; but they were infinitely more disgusted 
with the spirit of tyrannous folly shown by the 
King and Parliament. The only possible out- 
come was independence. 

The citizens had become thoroughly hostile to 
the Tory Colonial Assembly, and had formally set 
it aside and replaced it, first by a succession of 
committees, and then by a series of provincial 
congresses, corresponding to the central Conti- 
nental Congress. The mob never controlled these 
congresses, whose leaders were men like Schuyler, 
Van Zandt, Van Cortlandt, Jay, the Livingstons, 
the Morrises, the Van Rensselaers, the Ludlows, — 
representatives of the foremost families of the 
New York gentry.' When the Provincial Con- 

* The names of the members of these committees and pro- 
vincial congresses are English, Dutch, Huguenot, Scotch, 
Irish, and German; the English in the lead, with the Dutch 
coming next. Many of the families were represented by- 
more than one individual : thus of the Livingstons there were 
Walter, Peter Van Brugh, Robert L., and Philip; of the 
Ludlows, Gabriel and William; of the Beekmans, David and 
William; of the Roosevelts, Isaac and Nicholas; etc. 



156 New York 

gress, with unanimity and the heartiest enthusi- 
asm, ratified the Declaration of Independence, it 
was evident that the best men in New York were 
on the Revolutionary side. 

In January, 1776, Washington sent one of his 
generals to take command in New York, and in 
April he himself made it his headquarters, having 
at last driven the enemy from Boston. Soon the 
motly levies of the patriot army were thronging 
the streets, — some in homespun or buckskin, a few 
in the dingy scarlet they had worn in the last 
French war, Marylanders in green hunting-shirts, 
Virginians in white smocks, militia in divers imi- 
forms from the other colonies, and Washington's 
guards, the nucleus of the famous Continental 
troops of the line, in their blue and buff. All New 
York was in a ferment; and the ardent young 
patriots were busy from morning till night in arm- 
ing, equipping, and drilling the regiments that 
made up her quota. ^ 

The city was in no state to resist a siege, or an 
attack by a superior force. Her forts, such as they 
were, would not have availed against any foe more 
formidable than a light frigate or heavy privateer. 
The truth was that the United States — for such 

* The younger men among the leading city famiUes fur- 
nished most of the captains for the city regiments, — among 
them being Henry S. Livingston, Abraham Van Wyck, John 
Berrian, John J. Roosevelt, and others. Many of the most 
distinguished, however, had themselves risen from the ranks. 



The Revolutionary War 157 

the revolted colonies had become — were extremely 
vulnerable to assault. Their settled territory lay 
in a narrow belt, stretching for a thousand miles 
along the coast. Its breadth was but a hundred 
miles or so, in most places ; then it faded off, the 
inland frontier lying vaguely in the vast, melan- 
choly, Indian-haunted forests. The ferocious and 
unending warfare with the red woodland tribes 
kept the thinly scattered pioneers busy defending 
their own hearthstones, and gave them but scant 
breathing spells in which to come to the help of 
their brethren in the old settled regions. The 
eastern frontier was the coast-line itself, which was 
indented by countless sounds, bays, and harbors, 
and here and there broken by great estuaries or 
tide-water rivers, which could carry hostile fleets 
into the heart of the land. The bulk of the popu- 
lation, and all the chief towns, lay in easy striking 
distance from the sea. Almost all the intercolo- 
nial trade went along the water-ways, either up 
and down the rivers, or skirting the coast. There 
was no important fortress or fortified city; no 
stronghold of note. A war power having com- 
mand of the seas possessed the most enormous 
advantage. It menaced the home trade almost 
as much as the foreign, threatened the whole ex- 
posed coast-line, — and therefore the settled coun- 
try which lay alongside it, — could concentrate its 
forces wherever it wished, and could penetrate the 



158 New York 

country at will. The revolted colonists had no 
navy, while the mother country possessed the 
most powerful in the world. She was fourfold 
their superior in population, and a hundredfold 
in wealth; she had a powerful standing army, 
while they had none. Moreover, the colonists' 
worst foes were those of their own household. The 
active Tories and half-hearted neutrals formed the 
majority of the population in many districts, — 
including Long Island and Staten Island. The 
Americans were then a race of yeomen, or small 
farmers, who were both warlike in temper and 
immilitary in habits. They were shrewd, brave, 
patriotic, stout of heart and body, and proudly 
self-reliant, but impatient of discipline, and most 
unwilling to learn the necessity of obedience. 
Their notion of war was to enlist for a short cam- 
paign, usually after the hay was in, and to return 
home by winter, or sooner, if their commanding 
officers displeased them. They seemed unable to 
appreciate the need of sustained effort. The jeal- 
ousies of the different States and their poverty and 
short-sighted parsimony, the looseness of the Fed- 
eral tie, the consequent impotence of the central 
government, and the radical unfitness of the Con- 
tinental Congress as a body to conduct war, all 
combined to render the prospects of the patriots 
gloomy. Only the heroic grandeur of Washington 
could have built up victory from these jarring 



The Revolutionary War 159 

elements. It was therefore natural for the patriot 
party of New York to look before it leaped ; but the 
leap once taken, it never faltered. No other State 
north of South Carolina was so harried by the 
forces of the king ; and against no other State did 
they direct such efforts or send such armies, — 
armies which held portions of it to the close of the 
war. Yet the patriot party remained firm 
throughout, never flinching through the long 
years, cheering the faint-hearted, crushing out the 
Tories, and facing the enemy with unshaken front. 
Early in the summer a great armament began to 
gather in the lower bay; a force more numerous 
and more formidable than the famous Armada 
which nearly two centuries before had sailed from 
Spain against England. Scores of war-ships of 
every kind, from the heavy liner, with her tiers of 
massive cannon, to the cutter armed with a couple 
of light cannon, and hundreds of transports and 
provision-ships began to arrive, squadron by 
squadron. Aboard them was an army of nearly 
forty thousand fightmg-men. A considerable num- 
ber were Hessians, and other German troops, hired 
out by the greedy and murderous baseness of the 
princelets of Germany. The Americans grew to 
feel a peculiar hatred for these Hessians, because 
of the ravages they committed, and because of the 
merely mercenary nature of their services ; but 
the wrong lay not with the poor, dull-witted, 



i6o New York 

hard-fighting boors, but with their sordid and 
contemptible masters. 

With the near approach of this great army the 
Tories began plotting; and most rigorous meas- 
ures were taken to stamp out these plots. For 
some reason the lower class of liquor sellers were 
mostly Tories, and many of the plots were found 
to have their origin among them or their custo- 
mers. The Loyalist gentry had for the most part 
fled to the British lines. Those who remained 
behind — including both the mayor and ex-mayor 
of the city — were forced to take a stringent oath 
of allegiance to the Continental Congress and the 
new nation. The Tory plots were not mythical; 
one was unearthed which aimed at nothing less 
than the abducting or kiUing of Washington, — the 
ringleader, Thomas Hickey, an Irish soldier who 
had deserted from the royal army, being hanged 
for his villainy. 

Washington saw the hopelessness of trying to 
defend New York with the materials he had, 
against such a force as was coming against it ; and 
it was proposed to bum the town and retire so that 
the king's troops might gain nothing by the cap- 
ture. This was undoubtedly the proper course 
to follow, from a purely military standpoint; 
but the political objections to its adoption were 
insuperable. Washington labored unceasingly 
at the almost hopeless task of perfecting the 



The Revolutionary War i6i 

discipline of his raw, ill-armed, ill-provided, jeal- 
ousy-riven army ; and he put down outrages, where 
he could, with a heavy hand. Nevertheless, many of 
the soldiers plundered right and left, treating the 
property of all Loyalists as rightfully to be con- 
fiscated, and often showing small scruple in rob- 
bing wealthy Whigs under pretense of mistaking 
them for Tories. 

At last, in mid-August, the British general, 
Lord Howe, made up his mind to strike at the 
doomed city. He landed on Long Island a body 
of fifteen or twenty thousand soldiers, — English, 
Irish, and German.^ The American forces on the 
island were not over half as numerous, and were 
stationed in the neighborhood of Brooklyn. Some 
of the British frigates had already ascended the 
Hudson to the Tappan Sea, and had cannonaded 
the town as they dropped down stream again, 
producing a great panic, but doing little damage. 
The royal army was landed on the twenty-second ; 
but Lord Howe, a very slow, easy-going man, did 
not deliver his blow until five days later. The attack 

* It is a curious fact that in the Revolutionary War the 
Germans and CathoHc Irish should have furnished the bulk 
of the auxiliaries to the regular English soldiers; for as the 
English is the leading strain in our blood, so the German and 
the Irish elements come next. The Maryland Catholics, and 
most of the German settlers, were stout adherents of the 
Revolutionary cause. The fiercest and most ardent Ameri- 
cans of all, however, were the Presbyterian Irish settlers and 
their descendants. 
II 



i62 New York 

was made in three divisions, early in the morning, 
and was completely successful. The Americans 
permitted themselves to be surprised, and were 
outgeneraled in every way. Not half the force 
on either side was engaged. Some of the Ameri- 
can troops made but a short stand ; others showed 
a desperate but disorderly valor. About two 
thousand of them were killed, wounded, or cap- 
tured, principally the latter ; while the British loss 
was less than four hundred, the battle being won 
without difficulty. Howe seemingly had the re- 
mainder of the American army completely at his 
mercy, for it was cooped up on a point of land 
which projected into the water. But he felt so 
sure of his prey that he did not strike at once ; and 
while he lingered and made ready, Washington, 
who had crossed over to the scene of disaster, per- 
fected his plans, and by a masterly stroke ferried 
the beaten army across to New York during the 
night of the twenty-ninth. The following morn- 
ing the king's generals woke to find that their 
quarry had slipped away from them. 

The discouragement and despondency of the 
Americans were very great, Washington almost 
alone keeping up heart. It was resolved to evac- 
uate New York ; the chief opponent of the evacu- 
ation being General George Clinton, a hard-fight- 
ing soldier from Ulster county, where his people of 
Anglo-Irish origin stood well, having intermarried 



The Revolutionary War 163 

with the Tappans and De Witts of the old Dutch 
stock. CHnton did not belong to the old colo- 
nial families of weight, being almost the only 
New York Revolutionary leader of note who did 
not ; and in consequence they rather looked down 
on him, while he in turn repaid their dislike with 
interest. He was a harsh, narrow-minded man, 
of obstinate courage and considerable executive 
capacity, very ambitious, and a fanatical leader of 
the popular party in the contest with the Crown. 

On September 15, Howe, having as usual lost a 
valuable fortnight by delay, moved against Man- 
hattan Island. His troops landed at Kip's Bay, 
where the Americans opposed to them, mostly 
militia, broke in disgraceful panic and fled before 
them. Washington spurred to the scene in a 
frenzy of rage, and did his best to stop the rout, 
striking the fugitives with his sword, and hurling 
at them words of bitter scorn; but it was all in 
vain, the flight could not be stayed, and Washing- 
ton himself was only saved from death or capture 
by his aides-de-camp, who seized his bridle-reins 
and forced him from the field. 

However, Washington's acts and words had 
their effect, and as the Americans recovered from 
their panic they became heartily ashamed of them- 
selves. The king's troops acted with such slow- 
ness that the American divisions south of Kip's 
Bay were able to march past them unmolested. 



1 64 New York 

These divisions, on their retreat, were guided by a 
brilHant young officer, Aaron Burr, then an aide- 
de-camp to the rough, simple-hearted old wolf- 
killer General Putnam ; and the rear was protected 
by Alexander Hamilton and his company of New 
York artillerymen, who in one or two slight skir- 
mishes beat off the advance guard of the pursuers. 

Washington drew up his army on Haarlem 
Heights, and the next day inflicted a smart check 
on the enemy. An American outpost was at- 
tacked and driven in by the English light troops, 
who were then themselves attacked and roughly 
handled by the Connecticut men and Virginians. 
They were saved from destruction by some regi- 
ments of Hessians and Highlanders; but further 
reinforcements for the Americans arrived, and the 
royal troops were finally driven from the field. 
About a hundred Americans and nearly three 
times as many of their foes were killed or wounded. 
It was nothing more than a severe skirmish ; but 
it was a victory, and it did much to put the Ameri- 
cans in heart. 

Besides, it was a lesson to the king's troops, and 
made Howe even more cautious than usual. For 
an entire month he remained fronting Washing- 
ton's lines, which, he asserted, were too strong to 
be carried by assault. Then the rough sea-dogs 
of the fleet came to his rescue, with the usual dar- 
ing and success of British seamen. His frigates 



The Revolutionary War 165 

burst through the obstructions which the Ameri- 
cans had fondly hoped would bar the Hudson, and 
sailed up past the flanks of the patriot army; 
while the passage to the Sound was also forced. 
Washington had no alternative but to retreat, 
which he did slowly, skirmishing heavily. At 
White Plains, Howe drove in the American out- 
posts, suffering more loss than he inflicted. But 
a fortnight later, in mid-November, a heavy dis- 
aster befell the Americans. In deference to the 
wishes of Congress, Washington had kept gar- 
risons in the two forts which had been built to 
guard the Hudson, and Howe attacked them with 
sudden energy. One was evacuated at the last 
moment ; the other was carried by assault, and its 
garrison of nearly three thousand men captured, 
after a resistance which could not be called more 
than respectable. Washington retreated into 
New Jersey with his dwindling army of but little 
more than three thousand men. The militia had 
all left him long before ; and his short-term ' 'regu- 
lar" troops also went off by companies and regi- 
ments as their periods of enlistment drew to a 
close; and the stoutest friends of America des- 
paired. Then, in the icy winter, Washington 
suddenly turned on his foes, crossed the Delaware, 
and by the victory of Trenton, won at the darkest 
moment of the war, re-established the patriot 
cause. 



1 66 New York 

For the next seven years, New York suffered all 
the humiliations that fall to the lot of a conquered 
city. The king's troops held it as a garrison town, 
under military rule, and made it the headquarters 
of their power in America. Their foraging parties 
and small expeditionary columns ravaged the 
neighboring counties, not only of New York, but of 
New Jersey and Connecticut. The country in the 
immediate vicinity of the city was overawed by the 
formidable garrison and remained Loyalist; be- 
yond this came a wide zone or neutral belt where 
the light troops and irregular forces of both sides 
fought one another and harried the wretched in- 
habitants. Privateers were fitted out to cruise 
against the shipping of the other States, precisely 
as the privateers of the patriots had sailed from 
the harbor against the shipping of Britain in the 
earlier days of the war. 

Most of the active patriots among the townsfolk 
had left the city; only the poor and the faint- 
hearted remained behind, together with the large 
Tory element, and the still larger portion of the 
population which strove to remain neutral in the 
conflict. This last division contained the only 
persons whose conduct must be regarded as thor- 
oughly despicable. Emphatically the highest 
meed of praise belongs to the resolute, high- 
minded, far-seeing men of the patriot party, — as 
distinguished from the mere demagogues and mob 



The Revolutionary War 167 

leaders who, of course, are to be found associated 
with every great popular movement. We can 
also heartily respect the honest and gallant Loy- 
aUsts who sacrificed all by their devotion to the 
king's cause. But the selfish time-servers, the 
timid men, and those who halt between two bur- 
dens, and can never make up their minds which 
side to support in any great poHtical crisis, are 
only worthy of contempt. 

The king's troops were not cruel conquerors; 
but they were insolent and overbearing, and some- 
times brutal. The Loyahsts were in a thoroughly 
false position. They had drawn the sword against 
their countrymen ; and yet they could not hope to 
be treated as equals by those for whom they were 
fighting. They soon found to their bitter chagrin 
that their haughty allies regarded them as in- 
feriors, and despised an American Tory almost as 
much as they hated an American Whig. The 
native army had not behaved well in the half -Tory 
city of New York; but the invading army which 
drove it out behaved much worse. The soldiers 
broke into and looted the corporation, the college, 
and the small public libraries, hawking the books 
about the streets, or exchanging them for liquor in 
the low saloons. They also sacked the Presby- 
terian, Dutch Reformed, and Huguenot churches, 
which were later turned into prisons for the cap- 
tured Americans; while on the other hand, the 



i68 New York 

Episcopalian churches, which had been closed 
owing to the riotous conduct of the patriot mob, 
were reopened. The hangers-on of the army, — 
the camp-followers, loose women, and the Hke, — 
formed a regular banditti, who infested the streets 
after dark, and made all outgoings dangerous. 
There was a completely organized system of gi- 
gantic jobbery and swindling, by which the con- 
tractors and commissaries, and not a few of the 
king's officers as well, were enriched at the expense 
of the British government; and when they plun- 
dered the government wholesale, it was not to be 
supposed that they would spare Tories. The rich 
RoyaHsts, besides of course all the Whigs, had 
their portable property, their horses, provisions, 
and silver taken from them right and left, — some- 
times by bands of marauding soldiers, sometimes 
by the commissaries, but always without redress or 
compensation, their representations to the officers 
in command being scornfully disregarded. They 
complained in their bitter anger that the troops 
sent to reconquer America seemed bent on cam- 
paigning less against the rebels than against the 
king's own friends and the king's own army-chest. 
Many of the troops lived at free quarters in the 
private houses, behaving well or ill according to 
their individual characters. 

A few days after New York was captured it took 
fire, and a large portion of it was burnt up before 



The Revolutionary War 169 

the flames were checked. The British soldiers 
were infuriated by the beHef that the fire was the 
work of rebel incendiaries, and in the disorganiz- 
ation of the day they cut loose from the control of 
their officers and committed gross outrages, bay- 
oneting a number of men, both Whigs and Tories, 
whom on the spur of the moment they accused of 
being privy to the plot for burning the city. Two or 
three years afterward there was another great fire, 
which consumed much of what the first had 
spared. 

On the day of this first fire an American spy, 
Nathan Hale, was captured. His fate attracted 
much attention on account of his high personal 
character. He was a captain in the patriot army, 
a graduate of Yale, and betrothed to a beautiful 
girl; and he had volunteered for the dangerous 
task from the highest sense of duty. He was 
hanged the following morning, and met his death 
with quiet, unflinching firmness, his last words 
expressing his regret that he had but one life to 
lose for his country. He was mourned by his 
American comrades as deeply and sincerely and 
with to the full as much reason as a few years later 
Andre was mourned by the officers of the king. 

Four or five thousand American soldiers were 
captured in the battles attending the taking of 
New York ; and thenceforward the city was made 
the prison-house of all the captured patriots. The 



lyo New York 

old City Hall, the old sugar-house of the Living- 
stons (a gloomy stone building, five stories high, 
with deep narrow windows) , and most of the non- 
Episcopal churches were turned into jails, and 
packed full of prisoners. It was a much rougher 
age than the present ; the prisons of the most civi- 
lized countries were scandalous even in peace, and 
of course prisoners of war fared horribly. The 
king's officers as a whole doubtless meant to be- 
have humanely ; but the provost-marshal of New 
York was a very brutal man, and the cheating 
commissaries who undertook to feed the prisoners 
made large fortunes by furnishing them with 
spoiled provisions, curtailing their rations, and the 
like. The captives were huddled together in 
ragged, emaciated, vermin-covered and fever- 
stricken masses; while disease, bad food, bad 
water, the cold of winter, and the stifling heat of 
summer ravaged their squalid ranks. Every 
morning the death-carts drew up at the doors to 
receive the bodies of those who during the night 
had died on the filthy straw of which they made 
their beds. The prison-ships were even worse. 
They were evil, pestilent hulks of merchantmen or 
men-of-war, moored mostly in Wallabout Bay; 
and in their noisome rotten holds men died by 
himdreds, and were buried in shallow pits at the 
water's edge, the graves being soon uncovered by 
the tide. In after years many hogsheads of 



The Revolutionary War 171 

human bones were taken from the foul ooze to 
receive Christian burial. 

So for seven dreary years New York lay in 
thraldom, while Washington and his Continentals 
battled for the freedom of America. Nor did 
Washington battle only with the actual foe in the 
field. He had to strive also with the short-sighted 
and sour jealousies of the different States, the 
mixed impotence and intrigue of Congress, the 
poverty of the people, the bankruptcy of the gov- 
ernment, the lukewarm timidity of many, the open 
disaffection of not a few, and the jobbery of specu- 
lators who were sometimes to be found high in the 
ranks of the army itself. Moreover, he had to 
contend with the general dislike of discipline and 
sustained exertion natural to the race of shrewd, 
brave, hardy farmers whom he led, — unused as 
they were to all restraint, and unable to fully ap- 
preciate the necessity of making sacrifices in the 
present for the sake of the future. But his soul 
rose above disaster, misfortune, and suffering; he 
had the heart of the people really with him, he was 
backed by a group of great statesmen, and he had 
won the unfaltering and devoted trust of the band 
of veteran soldiers with whom he had achieved 
victory, suffered defeat, and wrested victory from 
defeat for so many years ; and he triumphed in the 
end. 

On November 25, 1783, the armies of the king 



172 New York 

left the city they had held so long, carrying with 
them some twelve thousand Loyalists; while on 
the same day Washington marched in with his 
troops and with the civil authorities of the State. 



.. 



CHAPTER XI. 

THE FEDERALIST CITY. 1783-1800. 

NEW York was indeed a dreary city when the 
king's troops left it after their sojourn of 
seven years. The spaces desolated by the 
great fires had never been built up, but still 
remained covered with the charred, melancholy 
ruins; the churches had been dismantled, the 
houses rifled. Business was gone, and the chan- 
nels in which it had run were filled up. The 
Americans on taking possession once more had to 
begin all over again. They set busily to work to 
rebuild the fallen fortunes of the town; but the 
destruction had been so complete, and the diffi- 
culties in the way of getting a fair start were so 
great, that for four years very Httle progress was 
made. Then affairs took a turn for the better; 
the city began to flourish as it never had flour- 
ished before, and grew in wealth and population 
at a steadily increasing pace. 

The dismantled churches were put in order; 
and Trinity, which had been burnt down in the 
fire of 1776, was entirely rebuilt. King's College 
had its name changed to Columbia, and was again 
started, the first scholar being De Witt Clinton, a 
nephew of George Clinton, at the time governor of 

173 



174 New York 

the State. The free pubHc library — the New 
York Society Library — was revived on a very 
much larger scale, and a good building erected, 
wherein to house the books. The new constitu- 
tion of the independent State of New York com- 
pletely did away with the religious disabilities 
enforced under the old provincial government, and 
declared and maintained absolute religious toler- 
ation and equality before the law. In conse- 
quence a Catholic church was soon built; while 
the Methodists increased rapidly in numbers and 
influence. 

The New York Medical Society began its career 
in 1788; and one of the most curious of New 
York's many riots occurred shortly afterward. 
The mob engaged in this riot was always known 
as "the doctors' mob," because their wrath was 
directed against the young medical students and 
their teachers. Rumors had been rife for some 
time that the doctors rifled the graveyards to get 
subjects for dissection, which excited the populace 
greatly. One day a boy looking into the dissect- 
ing-room saw the medical students at work on a 
body, and immediately ran home and alarmed his 
father. Without any more reason than this, the 
mob suddenly assembled, hunted the doctors out 
of their homes, entered houses and destroyed 
property, refused to obey the commands of the 
civil officers when called on to disperse, and finally 



Federal Hall, ijgj. 



The Federalist City 175 

came into collision with the State troops, who 
scattered them with a volley, killing and woimding 
several. 

An occasional turbulent outbreak of this sort, 
however, could not check the city's growth. Com- 
merce throve apace. The more venturesome 
merchants sent ships for the first time to the far 
China seas ; and in a few years, when the gigantic 
warfare of the French Revolution convulsed all 
Europe, New York began to take its full share of 
the traffic which was thereby forced into neutral 
bottoms. 

The achievement of liberty had not worked any 
radical change in the municipal government of the 
city; and the constitution under which the State 
entered on its new life of independence was not 
ultra-democratic, although of course marking a 
long stride toward democracy. The suffrage was 
rigidly limited. There were two kinds of fran- 
chise: any man owning a freehold worth ;^20, or 
paying rent to the value of forty shillings could 
vote for the members of the Assembly ; while only 
a freeholder whose freehold was worth ;^ioo could 
vote for senator or governor. Almost all the 
executive and legislative officers, whether of the 
State, the county, or the town, were appointed by 
the Council of Appointment, which consisted of 
the governor and four senators. The large land- 
holding families thus still retained very much 



176 New York 

influence. The destruction of the power of the great 
Tory families, however, had of course diminished 
the weight of the rich landowning class as a 
whole ; and in the country the decisive power was 
in the hands of the small freeholding farmers. 

The State was not yet governed by an absolute 
democracy, because as yet no one save theorists 
were believers in an absolute democracy, and even 
manhood suffrage was not advocated by many 
persons; while the unenfranchised were not ac- 
tively discontented. The framers of the State 
constitution were not mere paper-government 
visionaries; they were shrewd, honest, practical 
politicians, acquainted with men and affairs. 
They invented new governmental methods when 
necessary, but they did not try to build up an 
entirely new scheme of government ; they simply 
took the old system under which the affairs of the 
colony had been administered and altered it to 
suit the altered conditions of the new State. This 
method was of course much the wisest ; but it was 
naturally attended by some disadvantages. The 
constitution-makers kept certain provisions it 
would have been well to throw away ; they failed 
to guard against certain dangers that were sure 
to arise imder the changed circumstances ; and on 
the other hand, they created difficulties by their 
endeavors to guard against certain other dangers 
which had really vanished with the destruction of 



The Federalist City 177 

the old system. This was notably shown by their 
treatment of the governorship, and by their fear of 
one-man power generally. The colonial governor 
was not elected by the people, nor responsible to 
them in any way ; it was therefore to the popular 
interest to hem in his power by all lawful expedi- 
ents. This was done by the colonial legislature, 
the only exponent and servant of the popular wish. 
The State governor, however, was elected by the 
people, was responsible to them, and was as much 
their servant and representative as the legislature. 
Nevertheless, the distrust of the non-represen- 
tative, appointed, colonial governor was handed 
down as a legacy to his elective and representative 
successor. The fact that the colonial governor 
was made irresponsible by the method of his ap- 
pointment, and that a colonial legislature ap- 
pointed in the same way would have been equally 
irresponsible and objectionable, was seemingly 
overlooked, and the governorship was treated as if 
a single person were more dangerous than a group 
of persons to those who elect both, and can hold 
both equally responsible. Accordingly, he was 
hampered with the Council of Appointment, and 
in other ways. We have since grown wiser in this 
respect; but the curious fear still survives, and 
shows itself occasionally in odd ways, — such as 
standing up for the "rights" of a wholly useless 

and pernicious board of aldermen. 
12 



178 New York 

The government of the city was treated in the 
same way. In colonial times the freeholders elected 
their own aldermen, while the mayor and execu- 
tive officers were appointed by the representatives 
of the Crown. The system was continued, the 
State governor and Council of Appointment being 
substituted for the royal governor and his council. 
The freeholders continued to elect their aldermen, 
and the constables, when constables were elected ; 
but the mayor, the sheriff, and the other officers 
were appointed by the State authorities. James 
Duane was the first mayor thus appointed. There 
was thus in one respect far less local independ- 
ence, far less right of local self-government granted 
the city then than now. The entire patronage or 
appointing power was centralized in the State 
authorities. On the other hand the city had 
greater liberty of action in certain directions than 
nowadays. The aldermen formed a real local leg- 
islature; and the city treasurer was actually ac- 
customed to issue paper money on the credit of the 
municipality. On the whole, however, American 
cities have never possessed the absolute right to 
independent life and the exercise of local sover- 
eignty that have been enjoyed by most European 
burghs. In America, both in colonial days and 
under the national government, the city has been 
treated merely as a geographical section of the 
State, and has been granted certain rights of 



The Federalist City 179 

self-government, like other sections ; though those 
rights are of a peculiar kind, because of the pecu- 
liar needs and characteristics of the grantee. They 
can be altered, amended, enlarged, or withdrawn 
at the pleasure of the grantor, the State legislature. 
Even the enormous growth of the urban popu- 
lation during the last half-century has not in the 
least altered the legal and political status of the 
city as the creature of the State. 

Long before the Revolutionary War had closed, 
the old government of the confederation had dem- 
onstrated its almost utter impotence ; and things 
grew worse after the peace. The people at large were 
slow to accept the idea that a new and stronger 
government was necessary. The struggle they 
had just passed through was one for liberty, 
against power; and they did not for the moment 
realize that license and anarchy are liberty's worst 
enemies. Their extreme individualism and their 
ultra-independent feelings, perpetually excited 
and played upon by all the legion of demagogues, 
inclined them to look with suspicion and distrust 
upon the measures by which alone they could hope 
to see their country raise her head among the 
nations of the earth. The best and wisest men 
of the land saw from the first the need of a real and 
strong union ; but the mass of the people came to 
this idea with the utmost reluctance. It was 
beaten into their minds by the hard logic of 



i8o New York 

disaster. The outbreak of armed rebellion in Mass- 
achusetts and North Carolina, the general lawless- 
ness, the low tone of commercial honor, the bank- 
ruptcy of the States and their loss of credit at 
home and abroad, the contempt with which the 
confederation was treated by European nations, 
and the jarring interests of the different common- 
wealths themselves, which threatened at any mo- 
ment to break out into actual civil war, — all these 
combined with the wisdom and eloquence of the 
ablest statesmen in the land, and the vast weight 
of Washington's character were needed to convince 
an obstinate, suspicious, and narrow-minded, 
though essentially brave, intelligent, and patriotic 
people that they must cast aside their prejudices 
and jealousies and unite to form a stable and pow- 
erful government. Had they not thus united, 
their triumph in the Revolutionary War would 
have been a calamity for America instead of a 
blessing. Freedom without unity, freedom with 
anarchy, would have been worse than useless. 
{ I The men who opposed the adoption of the present 
! I constitution of the United States committed an 



error to the full as great as that of the Tories them- 
selves; and they strove quite as hard, and for- 
/ tunately quite as unsuccessfully, to damage their 
country. The adoption of the constitution was 
the completion of the work begun by the War of 
Independence. This work had two stages, each 



The Federalist City i8i 

essential; and those who opposed it during the 
second stage, like those who opposed it in the first, 
however honest of intent, did all they could to 
injure America. The Tory and the disunionist, or 
nonunionist, were equally dangerous enemies of 
the national growth and well-being. 

It was during this period of the foundation of 
the Federal government, and during the imme- 
diately succeeding period of the supremacy of the 
Federalists in national affairs that New York City 
played its greatest and most honorable part in the 
government of the nation. Never before or since 
has it occupied so high a position politically, com- 
pared to the country at large; for during these 
years it was the seat of power of the brilliant Fed- 
eralist party of New York State. Alexander 
Hamilton, John Jay, and at the end of the time 
Gouverneur Morris, lived in the city, or so near 
it as to have practically the weight and influence 
of citizens; and it was the home likewise of their 
arch-foe Aaron Burr, the prototype of the skilful, 
unscrupulous ward-politician, so conspicuous in 
the later periods of the city's development. 

Hamilton, the most brilliant American states- ■ \ [ ^ 
man who ever lived, possessing the loftiest and ; I ^ 
keenest intellect of his time, was of course easily 
the foremost champion in the ranks of the New 
York Federalists ; second to him came Jay, pure, 
strong and healthy in heart, body, and mind. 



\f 



i82 New York 

Both of them watched with uneasy alarm the rapid 
drift toward anarchy ; and both put forth all their 
efforts to stem the tide. They were of course too 
great men to fall in with the views of those whose 
antagonism to tyranny made them averse from 
order. They had little sympathy with the violent 
prejudices produced by the war. In particular 
they abhorred the vindictive laws directed 
against the persons and property of Tories; and 
they had the manliness to come forward as the 
defenders of the helpless and excessively tmpopu- 
lar Loyalists. They put a stop to the wrongs 
which were being inflicted on these men, and 
finally succeeded in having them restored to legal 
equality with other citizens, standing up with 
generous fearlessness against the clamor of the 
mob. 

As soon as the project for a closer union of the 
States was broached, Hamilton and Jay took it up 
with ardor. New York City followed their lead, 
but the State as a whole was against them. The 
most popular man within its bounds was stout old 
Governor Clinton, and he led the opposition to the 
proposed union. Clinton was a man of great 
strength of character, a good soldier, and stanch 
patriot in the Revolutionary War. He was bit- 
terly obstinate and prejudiced, and a sincere friend 
of popular rights. He felt genuine distrust of any 
form of strong government. He was also doubt- 



The Federalist City 183 

less influenced in his opposition to the proposed 
change by meaner motives. He was the greatest 
man in New York ; but he could not hope ever to 
be one of the greatest in the nation. He was the 
ruler of a small sovereign State, the commander- 
in-chief of its little army, the admiral of its petty 
navy, the leader of its politicians ; and he did not 
w4sh to sacrifice the importance that all of this 
conferred upon him. The cold, suspicious temper 
of the small country freeholders, and the narrow 
jealousy they felt for their neighbors, gave him 
excellent material on which to work. 

Nevertheless, Hamilton won, thanks to the loy- 
alty with which New York City stood by him. By 
untiring effort and masterful oratory he persuaded 
the State to send three delegates to the Federal 
constitutional convention. He himself went as 
one, and bore a prominent part in the debates ; his 
two colleagues, a couple of anti-Federalist no- 
bodies, early leaving him. He then came back to 
the city where he wrote and published, jointly with 
Madison and Jay, a series of letters, afterward 
gathered into a volume called ' 'The Federalist," — 
a book which ranks among the ablest and best 
which have ever been written on politics and gov- 
ernment. These articles had a profound effect on 
the public mind. Finally he crowned his labors 
by going as a representative from the city to the 
State convention, and winning from a hostile body 



1 84 New York 

a reluctant ratification of the Federal constitution. 
The townsmen were quicker witted, and polit- 
ically more far-sighted and less narrow-minded 
than the average country folk of that day. The 
artisans, mechanics, and merchants of New York 
were enthusiastically in favor of the Federal con- 
stitution, and regarded Hamilton as their especial 
champion. To assist him and the cause they 
planned a monster procession, while the State con- 
vention was still sitting. Almost every represen- 
tative body in the city took part in it. A troop 
of light horse in showy uniforms led, preceded by a 
band of trumpeters and a light battery. Then 
came a personator of Columbus, on horseback, 
surrounded by woodsmen with axes, — the axe be- 
ing pre-eminently the tool and weapon of the 
American pioneer. Then came farmers in farm- 
ers' dress, driving horses and oxen yoked to both 
plow and harrow, while a new modeled thresh- 
ing-machine followed. The Society of the Cin- 
cinnati came next. The trades followed: garden- 
ers in green aprons, tailors, grain-measurers, bak- 
ers, with a huge "Federal loaf" on a platform 
drawn by ten bay horses; brewers, and coopers, 
with a stage drawn by four horses, bearing the 
"Federal cask," which the workmen finished as 
the procession moved ; butchers, tanners, glovers, 
furriers, carpenters, masons, bricklayers, white- 
smiths, blacksmiths, cordwainers, peruke-makers, 



The Federalist City 185 

florists, cabinet-makers, ivory- turners, ship- 
wrights, riggers, and representatives of scores of 
other trades. In every part of the procession 
fluttered banners with Hamilton's figure and 
name, and the great feature of the show was the 
Federal ship Hamilton, drawn by ten horses. 
It was a thirty-two-gun frigate in miniature, 
twenty-seven feet long, fully rigged, and manned 
by thirty seamen and marines. Thirteen guns 
from her deck gave the signal to start, and saluted 
at times during the procession. The faculty and 
students of the University, the learned societies 
and professions, the merchants, and distinguished 
strangers brought up the rear. The procession 
moved out to the Bayard House, beyond the city, 
where a feast for six thousand people was served. 

For the first year of government under the new 
constitution. New York was the Federal capital. 
It was thither that Washington journeyed to be 
inaugurated President with stately solemnity, 
April 30, 1789. The city had by this time fully 
recovered its prosperity ; and when it became the 
headquarters for the ablest statesmen from all 
parts of the Union, its social life naturally became 
most attractive, and lost its provincial spirit. 
However, its term of glory as the capital was short, 
for when Congress adjourned in August, 1790, it 
was to meet at Philadelphia. 

The political history of the city during the 



1 86 New York 

twelve years of Washington's and Adams's ad- 
ministrations, is the history of a nearly balanced 
struggle between the Federalists and the anti- 
Federalists, who gradually adopted the name, 
first of Republicans and then of Democrats. As 
always in our political annals, individuals were 
constantly changing sides, often in large numbers ; 
but as a whole, party continuity was well pre- 
served. The men who had favored the adoption 
of the constitution grew into the Federal party; 
the men who had opposed it, and wished to con- 
strue it as narrowly as possible, and to restrict the 
powers of the central government even to the 
point of impotence, became Jeffersonian Republi- 
cans. 

Hamilton and Jay were the heart of the Feder- 
alist party in the city and State. Both were 
typical New Yorkers of their time, — being of 
course the very highest examples of the type, for 
they were men of singularly noble and lofty char- 
acter. Both were of mixed and non-English 
blood. Jay being of Huguenot and Hollander stock, 
and Hamilton of Scotch and French Creole. Ham- 
ilton, bom out of New York, was in some ways a 
more characteristic New Yorker than Jay; for 
New York, like the French Revolution, has always 
been pre-eminently a career open to talent. The 
distinguishing feature of the city has been its 
broad liberality; it throws the doors of every 



The Federalist City 187 

career wide open to all adopted citizens. Jay- 
lacked Hamilton's brilliant audacity and gen- 
ius; but he possessed an austere purity and 
poise of character which his greater companion 
did not. He was twice elected governor of the 
State, serving from 1795 to 1801 ; indeed, he was 
really elected to the position in 1792, but was 
cheated out of it by most gross and flagrant elec- 
tion frauds, carried on in Clinton's interest, and 
connived at by him. His popularity was only 
temporarily interrupted even by the storm of silly 
and unwarranted abuse with which New York 
City, like the rest of the country, greeted the suc- 
cessful treaty which he negotiated when special 
envoy to England in 1794. 

Hamilton was, of course, the leader of his party. 
But his qualities, admirably though they fitted 
him for the giant tasks of constructive statesman- 
ship with which he successfully grappled, did not 
qualify him for party leadership. He was too impa- 
tient and dictatorial, too heedless of the small arts 
and unwearied, intelligent industry of the party 
manager. In fighting for the adoption of the 
constitution he had been heartily supported by the 
great families, — the Livingstons, the Van Rens- 
selaers, and his own kin by marriage, the Schuy- 
lers. Afterward he was made secretary of the 
treasury, and Jay chief- justice, while through his 
efforts Schuyler and Rufus King — a New York 



i88 New York 

City man of New England origin — were made 
senators. Chancellor Robert R. Livingston was 
not an extreme believer in the ideas of Hamilton. 
He was also jealous of him, being a very ambi- 
tious man, and was offended at being, as he con- 
ceived, slighted in the distribution of the favors 
of the national administration. Accordingly, he 
deserted to the Republicans with all his very 
influential family following. This was the first 
big break in the Federalist ranks. 

When Washington was inaugurated President 
he found that he had a number of appointments to 
make in New York. Almost all the men he thus 
appointed were members of the party that had 
urged the adoption of the constitution, — for 
Washington, though incapable of the bitter and 
unreasoning partisanship which puts party above 
the public welfare and morality, was much more 
of a party man than it has been the fashion to rep- 
resent him, and during the final years of his life, 
in particular, was a strong Federahst. Clinton 
distributed the much larger and more important 
State patronage chiefly among his anti-FederaHst 
adherents. As already explained, there was then 
no patronage at all in the hands of the local, that 
is, the county and city, authorities; for though 
an immense amount was given to the mayor, he 
was realty a State official. 

The parties were very evenly matched in New 



The Federalist City 189 

York City, no less than in the State at large, during 
the closing twelve years of the century, — the 
period of Federalist supremacy in the nation. 
The city was the pivotal part of the State, and the 
great fighting-ground. It was carried alternately 
by the Federalists and Democrats, again and 
again. Aaron Burr, polished, adroit, unscrupu- 
lous, was the most powerful of the city Democracy. 
He was elected to the United States Senate to 
succeed Schuyler, and was in turn himself suc- 
ceeded by Schuyler. Hamilton grew to regard 
him with especial dislike and distrust, because of 
his soaring ambition, his cunning, and his lack of 
conscience. The Livingstons backed him ardently 
against the Federalists, and one of their number 
was elected and re-elected to Congress from the 
city. De Witt Clinton was also forging to the 
front, and was a candidate for State office from the 
city on more than one occasion, sharing in the 
defeats and victories of his party. Jay's two suc- 
cessive victories, on the other hand, gave the Fed- 
eralists the governorship of the State for six years. 
Under Hamilton's lead they won in New York 
City rather more often than they lost. In 1799 
they gained a complete victory, utterly defeating 
the Democratic ticket, which was headed by Burr ; 
and the legislature thus chosen elected the Fed- 
eralist Gouvemeur Morris to the United States 
Senate. The newspapers reviled their opponents 



I90 New York 

with the utmost bitterness, and often with fero- 
cious scurriUty. The leading FederaHst editor in 
the city was the famous dictionary-maker, Noah 
Webster. 

Party and personal feeling was intensely bitter 
all through these contests. Duels were frequent 
among the leaders, and riots not much less so 
among their followers. The mob turned out joy- 
fully, on mischief bent, whenever there was any 
excuse for it; and the habit of holding open-air 
meetings, to denounce some particular person or 
measure, gave ample opportunity for outbreaks. 
At these meetings, speakers of the for- the -moment 
unpopular party were often rather roughly 
handled, — a proceeding which nowadays would be 
condemned by even the most heated partisans as 
against the rules of fair play. The anti-Feder- 
alists, at some of their public meetings, held to 
denounce the adoption of the constitution, or to 
break up the gatherings of those who supported 
it, got up regular riots against their opponents. 
At one of the meetings, held for the purpose of 
denouncing Jay's treaty with England, — a treaty 
which was of great benefit to the country, and the 
best that could then have been negotiated, — 
Hamilton was himself maltreated. 

At the approach of the Presidential election of 
1800, Burr took the lead in organizing the forces 
of the Democracy. He was himself his party's 



The Federalist City 191 

candidate for the Vice- Presidency ; and he man- 
aged the campaign with consummate skill. As 
before, the city was the pivotal part of the State, 
while the State's influence in the election at large 
proved to be decisive. The Democracy of the city 
was tending to divide into three factions. The 
Clintons were the natural leaders ; but the Living- 
ston family was very powerful, and was connected 
by marriage with such men as James Duane, a city 
politician of great weight, and Morgan Lewis, 
afterward governor ; and both the Clintonians and 
Livingstons, jealous of one another, were united 
in distrust of Burr. Accordingly, the latter 
dexterously managed to get up a combination 
ticket containing the names of the most prominent 
members of each faction. This secured him 
against any disaffection. He then devoted him- 
self to the work of organization. By his tact, 
address, and singular personal charm, he had 
gathered round him a devoted band of henchmen, 
mostly active and energetic young men. He made 
out complete lists of all the voters, and endeav- 
ored to find out how each group could be reached 
and influenced, and he told off every worker to the 
district where he could do most good. He was 
indefatigable in getting up ward meetings also. 
Hamilton fought him desperately, and with far 
greater eloquence, and he was on the right side ; 
but Hamilton was a statesman rather than a 



192 New York 

politician. He had quarreled uselessly with some of 
the greatest men in his own party; and he could 
not devote his mind to the mastery of the petty 
political detail and intrigue in which Burr reveled. 
Burr won the day by a majority of five hundred 
votes. As so often since in this city, the states- 
man, the man of mark in the national arena, went 
down before the skilful ward-politician. 

Thus the great Federalist party fell from power, 
not to regain it, save in local spasms here and 
there. It was a party of many faults, — above all 
the one unforgivable fault of distrusting the peo- 
ple, — but it was the party which founded our gov- 
ernment, and ever most jealously cherished the 
national honor and integrity. New York City has 
never produced any other political leaders deserv- 
ing to rank with the group of distinguished Feder- 
alists who came from within, or from just without, 
her borders. She has never since stood so high 
politically, either absolutely, or relatively to the 
rest of the country. 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE BEGINNING OF DEMOCRATIC RULE. 1801-182I. 

IN the electoral college, Jefferson and Burr, the 
Democratic-Republican candidates for Pres- 
ident and Vice-President, had a tie vote 
under the curious system then prevailing, and this 
left the House of Representatives to decide which 
should be given the Presidency. The Federalists, 
as a whole, from hatred to Jefferson, supported 
Burr; but Hamilton, to his honor, opposed this 
move with all his might, and from thenceforth was 
regarded by Burr with peculiar and sinister hostil- 
ity. Jefferson was finally chosen. 

In the spring of 1801 the Democrats also elected 
the veteran George Clinton as governor, De Witt 
Clinton being at the same time made one of the 
Council of Appointment. They then for the first 
time had complete and unchecked control of the 
entire governmental system of the nation and 
State, and therefore of the city. 

From that day to this the Democratic party has 
been the dominant party in New York City. Oc- 
casionally, in some period of violent political up- 
heaval, or at a moment when the ever-existing 
faction-fight in its own ranks has been more than 
usually bitter and exhausting, its opponents for 
13 '93 



194 New York 

the time being, whether Federalists, Whigs, Re- 
pubhcans, or members of ephemeral organizations, 
like that of the Native Americans, have succeeded 
in carrying a given election. But their triumph 
has never been more than momentary; after a 
very short time the Democracy has invariably 
returned to power. 

The complete Democratic victory in both State 
and nation, under Clinton and Jefferson, was fol- 
lowed by the definite enthronement of the system 
of so-called "spoils" politics in New York; that 
is, the system according to which public offices are 
used to reward partisan activity became estab- 
lished as the theory on which politics were con- 
ducted, not only by the Democrats, but by Feder- 
alists, Whigs, and Republicans, down to the pres- 
ent time, — though of late years there has been a 
determined and partially successful effort to over- 
throw it. As a matter of fact, politics had had 
much to do with appointments, even before 1800 ; 
but the theory of making purely political appoint- 
ments had not been openly avowed, and there had 
been a very real feeling against political removals. 
Moreover, there had been comparatively little 
pressure to make these removals. In national 
affairs the Federalists had been supreme since the 
constitution was adopted, and so had nobody to 
remove. When Washington took the Presidency, 
the citizens were divided on party lines accordingly 



City of New York^ iHoj. 



f 



% 



t 



Democratic Rule 195 

as they did or did not favor the constitution ; and 
he made his appointments in much the greatest 
number of cases from among the former, although 
allowing his political opponents a certain share of 
the offices. During his second term, and during 
Adams's presidency, very few non-FederaUsts in- 
deed were appointed. In New York State Clinton 
was governor from the organization of the State 
government until 1795. He was therefore not 
tempted to make any removals for political rea- 
sons. Moreover, the w^hole question of removals 
and appointments was in the hands of the Council 
of Appointment, which was sometimes hostile to 
the governor. During the first ten years of Clin- 
ton's governorship there was practically but one 
party in the State ; after the rise of the Federalists 
very few of them were appointed to office, Clinton 
dexterously managing the patronage in the interest 
of his party and personal friends, but always with 
an eye to the benefit of the public at large. When 
Jay succeeded as governor, he appointed mainly 
Federalists ; but he rejected with indignation any 
proposition to make removals merely for political 
reasons. 

After 1800 all this was changed. Jefferson, as 
has been well said, enunciated the doctrine that 
' 'to the victors belong half the spoils ;" nor did he 
stop when by removals and resignations half of the 
Federalists had left office. In fact it is impossible 



196 New York 

to act on any such theory ; if half of the offices are 
taken as spoils, the other half must follow suit. 
Most of the national appointees in New York were 
speedily changed; and the remainder were tem- 
porarily saved only because Jefferson had in his 
cabinet one man, Albert Gallatin, who abhorred 
a general partisan proscription. The wielders of 
power in the State government were not so mod- 
erate. Stout old Governor Clinton protested 
against the meanness of making purely political 
removals ; but he was overruled by the Council of 
Appointment, which was led by his nephew, De 
Witt Clinton. The latter had adapted Jefferson's 
theory to New York conditions, and declared that 
all heads of cities, of counties, of big offices and the 
like, ought to be political adherents of the admin- 
istration, while all minor office-holders should be 
apportioned between the parties according to their 
numbers. Of course this meant in practice that 
all Federalists were to be removed and Democrats 
appointed in their places. In other words, the 
victors promptly proceeded to make a clean sweep 
of all the State, and therefore all the local, offices. 
The city had been the stronghold of FederaHsm, 
and its officers were among the first to feel the axe. 
Richard Varick had made a most admirable mayor 
for twelve years. He was now summarily re- 
moved and Edward Livingston appointed in his 
place. Livingston at the same time was also 



Democratic Rule 197 

given, by the national government, the position of 
United States District Attorney. The mayoralty 
was a much coveted prize, as the incumbent not 
only presided over the common council and wielded 
much patronage, but was also presiding judge 
of a court of record with peculiar and extensive 
powers. His emoluments came in the shape of 
fees and perquisites, arranged on such a liberal 
scale as to form a very large salary. When Liv- 
ingston left the office it was given to De Witt 
Clinton, then United States senator; and he ac- 
tually resigned from the Senate to take it. How- 
ever, the Senate was not then held in as high re- 
gard as now. About this time another New York 
senator resigned for the purpose of accepting the 
city postmastership. 

A dozen members and connections of the Liv- 
ingston family were appointed to important offices, 
the entire patronage of the State being divided 
between them and the Clintonians. They had 
formed an alliance to crush Burr, — receiving the 
hearty support of Jefferson, who always strove to 
break down any possible rival in his party. From 
this time on every faction of the Democratic party 
in turn, when it was in power, used the patronage 
mercilessly against its antagonists within and 
without the party, making a clean sweep of the 
offices ; and so did the Federalists, when for a brief 
moment, just before the War of 181 2, they again 



198 New York 

took the reins of government in the State. It was 
of course but a short step from making removals 
for poHtical reasons, without regard to the fitness 
of the incumbent, to making appointments in 
which considerations of poHtical expediency out- 
weighed considerations of propriety. The step 
was soon taken. The Council of Appointment 
even occasionally gave lucrative local offices in the 
city of New York to influential partisans of loose 
character from remote sections of the State. 

The Clintonians and Livingstons, backed by all 
the weight of the national administration, reduced 
Burr's influence in the Democratic party to a nul- 
lity, and finally drove him out. He was not 
renominated for Vice-President, George Clinton 
being put in his place. In the State election, 
about the same time. Chancellor Livingston's 
brother-in-law, Morgan Lewis, was nominated for 
governor. Burr ran for the office as an Independ- 
ent, hoping to carry not only his own faction of 
the Democracy, but also the entire Federalist vote. 
The majority of the Federalists did support him; 
but a large number, imder Hamilton's lead, re- 
fused to do so, and though he just carried the city, 
he was beaten overwhelmingly in the State at 
large. 

Burr was now a ruined man, hated by all fac- 
tions and parties. Nevertheless, he played out 
the losing game to the last with unmoved force 



Democratic Rule 199 

and unflinching resolution ; and he took cool and 
ferocious vengeance on his greatest and most 
formidable foe, Hamilton. The duel was then a 
recognized feature of society and politics, and had 
become a characteristic adjunct of the savage 
party contests in New York. One of Burr's follow- 
ers had killed Hamilton's eldest son in a duel ; and 
another had been severely wounded by De Witt 
Clinton in a similar encounter. In 1804, after his 
defeat for the governorship, Burr forced a duel on 
Hamilton, and mortally wounded him in a meeting 
with pistols at Weehawken, then a favorite resort 
for duelists. Hamilton's death caused the ut- 
most horror and anger. The whole city mourned 
him, even his poHtical opponents forgetting all 
save his generous and noble qualities, and the re- 
nown of his brilHant statesmanship. Burr was 
thenceforth an ostracized man; and dueling in 
New York received its death-blow. 

In 1807, when Governor Lewis's successor in the 
governorship was to be nominated, the Clintonian 
or popular wing of the Democracy turned on him, 
defeated him for the nomination, and drove the 
Livingston family from power, serving them pre- 
cisely as the two factions together had already 
served the Burrites. For a few years longer the 
Livingstons continued to have a certain influence 
in the State ; and while the Federal party was still 
of some weight, one or two of the great Federalist 



200 New York 

families — notably the Van Rensselaers — counted 
for a good deal in the political world. After the 
close of the War of 1812, however, the Federalists 
became of no moment, and the Livingstons, the 
aristocratic wing of the Democratic party, sank out 
of sight. The reign of the great families who for 
over a century had played so prominent a part in 
New York political life, was then at an end. They 
lost every shred of political power, and the com- 
monwealth became what it had long been becom- 
ing, in fact as well as name, absolutely democratic. 
The aristocratic leaven in the loaf disappeared 
completely. The sway of the people was absolute 
from that time on. 

After Washington, the greatest and best of the 
Federalist leaders, died, and after the Jeffersonian 
Democrats came into power, the two parties in 
New York, as elsewhere throughout the country, 
began to divide on a very humiliating line. They 
fought each other largely on questions of foreign 
politics. The Federalists supported the British 
in the European struggle then raging, and the 
Democrats the French. One side became known 
as the British, the other as the French faction. 
Each man with abject servility apologized for 
and defended the nimierous outrages committed 
against us by the nation whose cause his party 
championed. It was a thoroughly unwholesome 
and discreditable condition of politics, — worse 



Democratic Rule 201 

than anything we have seen in the country for 
many years past. Neither party at this time was 
truly national or truly American. To their honor 
be it said, however, many of the New York Demo- 
crats refused to go with the extreme Jeffersonians, 
as regards the embargo and subsequent matters. 
Moreover, the Federalists, in their turn, with the 
exception of a minority led by Gouverneur Morris, 
refused to take any part in the secessionist move- 
ments of their party friends in New England, dur- 
ing the War of 181 2. After this war the Federal- 
ists gradually disappeared ; while their opponents 
split into a perfect tangle of factions, whose in- 
numerable fights and squabbles it is nearly impos- 
sible and entirely unnecessary to relate in intelli- 
gible form. During all this period the political 
bitterness was intense, as the scurrility of the 
newspapers bore witness. One of its most curious 
manifestations was in connection with the charter- 
ing of banks. These were then chartered by 
special acts of the legislature; and it was almost 
absolutely impossible for a bank of which the 
officers and stockholders belonged to one party 
to get a charter from a legislature controlled by 
the other. Aaron Burr once accomplished the 
feat, before the Federalist overthrow in 1800, by 
taking advantage of the cry in New York for better 
water. He prepared a bill chartering a company 
to introduce water into the city, and tacked on an 



202 New York 

innocent-looking provision allowing them to or- 
ganize ' 'for other purposes " as well. The charter 
once granted, the company went into no other 
enterprise save banking, and let the water-supply 
take care of itself. 

At the beginning of the century, New York was 
a town of sixty thousand inhabitants. The social 
life was still aristocratic. The great families yet 
retained their prestige. Indeed, the Livingstons 
were at the zenith of their power in the State, and 
possessed enormous influence, socially and politi- 
cally. They were very wealthy, and lived in much 
state, with crowds of liveried negro servants, free 
and slave. Their city houses were large and hand- 
some, and their great country-seats dotted the 
beautiful banks of the Hudson. 

The divisions between the upper, middle, and 
lower classes were sharply marked. The old fami- 
lies formed a rather exclusive circle, and among 
them the large landowners still claimed the lead, 
though the rich merchants, who were of similar 
ancestry, much outnumbered them, and stood 
practically on the same plane. But the days of 
this social and political aristocracy were num- 
bered. They lost their political power first, being 
swamped in the rising democratic tide ; and their 
social primacy — mere emptiness when thus left 
unsupported — followed suit a generation or so 
later, when their descendants were gradually 



Democratic Rule 203 

ousted even from this last barren rock of refuge by 
those whose fathers or grandfathers had, out of the 
humblest beginnings, made their own huge for- 
tunes. The fall of this class, as a class, was not to 
be regretted; for its individual members did not 
share the general fate unless they themselves de- 
served to fall. The descendant of any old family 
who was worth his salt, still had as fair a chance 
as any one else to make his way in the world of 
politics, of business, or of literature ; and accord- 
ing to our code and standard, the man who asks 
more is a craven. 

However, the presence of the great families 
undoubtedly gave a pleasant flavor to the gay 
social life of New York during the early years of 
the century. It had a certain half -provincial 
dignity of its own. The gentlemen still dressed, 
with formal and elaborate care, in the costume 
then worn by the European upper classes, — a cos- 
tume certainly much more picturesque, if less 
comfortable, than that of the present day. The 
ladies were more apt to follow the fashions of Paris 
than of London. All well-to-do persons kept their 
own heavy carriages, and often used them for 
journeys no less than for pleasure drives. The 
social season was at its height in the winter, when 
there was an unintennipted succession of dinners, 
balls, tea-parties, and card-parties. One of the 
great attractions was the Park Theater, capable 



204 New York 

of holding twelve hundred persons, and always 
thronged when there was a good play on the 
boards. Large sleighing-parties were among the 
favorite pastimes, dinner being taken at some one 
of the half-dozen noted taverns a few miles with- 
out the city, while the drive back was made by 
torchlight if there was no moon. Marriages were 
scenes of great festivity. In summer the fashion- 
able promenade was the Battery Park, with its 
rows and clumps of shade-trees, and broad walk 
by the water ; and on still nights there was music 
played in boats on the water. The "gardens" 
— such as Columbia Gardens, and Mt. Vernon 
Gardens' on Broadway — were also meeting-places 
in hot weather. They were enclosed pieces of 
open ground, covered with trees, from which col- 
ored lanterns hung in festoons. There were foun- 
tains in the middle, and Httle tables at which ice- 
cream was served. Round the edges were boxes 
and stalls, sometimes in tiers; and there was 
usually a fine orchestra. When the hot months 
approached, the custom was to go to some fash- 
ionable watering-place, such as Ballston Springs, 
where the gaiety went on unchecked. 

The houses of the well-to-do were generally of 
brick, and those of the poorer people of wood. 
There were thirty-odd churches; and the two 
principal streets or roads were Broadway and the 

» This was at Leonard Street, then "a Uttle out of town." 



Corporal Thompson's House of Refreshmenl, i8oi. 



I 



*\ 



Democratic Rule 205 

Bowery. After nightfall the streets were lighted 
with oil lamps; each householder was obliged to 
keep the part of the thoroughfare in front of his 
own house clean swept. There were large mar- 
kets for vegetables, fruits, and meat, brought in 
by the neighboring farmers, and for fish and game, 
— Long Island furnishing abundance of venison, 
and of prairie fowl, or, as they were then called, 
heath hens. Hickory wood was generally used 
for fuel ; the big chimneys being cleaned by negro 
sweep boys. Milk was carried from house to house in 
great cans, by men with wooden yokes across their 
shoulders. The well-water was very bad; and 
pure spring-water from without the city was 
hawked about the streets in carts, and sold by the 
gallon. 

The sanitary condition of the city was very bad. 
A considerable foreign immigration had begun, — 
though a mere trickle compared to what has come 
in since, — and these immigrants, especially the 
Irish, lived in cellars and miserable hovels. Every 
few years the city was scourged by a pestilence of 
yellow fever. Then every citizen who could, left 
town ; and among those who remained, the death 
rate ran up far into the hundreds. 

As the city grew, the class of poor who were 
unable, at least in times of stress, to support them- 
selves, grew likewise; and organized charities 
were started in the effort to cope with the evil. 



2o6 New York 

Orphan asylums and hospitals were built. So- 
cieties for visiting the poor in their homes were 
started, and did active work, — and by their very 
existence showed how much New York already 
differed from the typical American country dis- 
trict or village, where there were few so poor as to 
need such relief, and hardly any who would not 
have resented it as an insult. As early as 1798 
one society reported that it had supported through 
a hard winter succeeding a summer of unusual 
sickness, over three hundred widows and orphans 
who would otherwise have had to take refuge in 
the almshouse. It goes without saying, however, 
that this acute poverty was always local and tem- 
porary; there was then no opportunity for the 
pauperism and misery of overcrowded tenement- 
house districts. 

The first savings-bank was established in 18 16. 
The foundations of our free-school system were 
laid in 1805. The Dutch had supported schools 
at the public expense during their time of su- 
premacy; but after their government was over- 
turned, the schooling had been left to private 
effort. Every church had its own school, learning 
being still the special property of the clergy ; and 
there were plenty of private schools and charity 
free schools in addition. Public-spirited citizens, 
however, felt that in a popular government the 
first duty of the State was to see that the chil- 



Democratic Rule 207 

dren of its citizens were trained as they should be. 
Accordingly, a number of prominent citizens 
organized themselves into a society to establish a 
free school, obtained a charter from the legisla- 
ture, and opened their school in 1806. They ex- 
pressly declared that their aim was only to provide 
for the education of such poor children as were not 
provided for by any religious society ; for at that 
time the whole theory of education was that it 
should be religious, and almost all schools were 
sectarian. The free schools increased in number 
under the care of the society, and finally grew to 
be called public schools; and by growth and 
change the system was gradually transformed, 
until one of the cardinal points of public policy in 
New York, as elsewhere in the northern United 
States, became the establishment of free, non- 
sectarian public schools, supported and managed 
by the State, and attended by the great mass of 
the children who go to school at all. The secta- 
rian schools, all-important before the rise of the 
public-school system, have now been thrust into 
an entirely secondary position. Perhaps the best 
work of the public school has been in the direction 
of Americanizing immigrants, or rather the chil- 
dren of immigrants; and it would be almost im- 
possible to overestimate the good it has accom- 
plished in this direction. 

Many scientific and literary societies were 



2o8 New York 

founded in New York early in the present century. 
The city began to have room for an occasional 
man of letters or science, in addition to the multi- 
tude of lawyers and clergymen, — the lawyer, in 
particular, occupying the front rank in Revo- 
lutionary and post-Revolutionary days. A queer, 
versatile scholar and student of science, who also 
dabbled in politics and philanthropy, Dr. Samuel 
Latham Mitchell, was one of New York's most 
prominent and most eccentric characters at this 
time. Charles Brockden Brown published one or 
two mystical novels which in their day had a cer- 
tain vogue, even across the Atlantic, but are now 
only remembered as being the earliest American 
ventures of the kind; and in 1807 Washington 
Irving may be said to have first broken ground in 
the American field of true literature with his 
"Knickerbocker's History of New York." 

This same year of 1807 was rendered note- 
worthy by the beginning of steam navigation. 
Robert Fulton, after many failures, at last in- 
vented a model that would work, and took his 
steamboat, the Clermont, on a trial trip from New 
York to Albany and back. Thus he began the era 
of travel by steam, to which, more than to any 
other one of the many marvelous discoveries and 
inventions of the age, we owe the mighty and far- 
reaching economic and social changes which this 
century has witnessed. Fulton's claim to the 



Democratic Rule 209 

discovery was disputed by a score of men, — 
among them his fellow-citizens, John Fitch, Nich- 
olas Roosevelt, and John Stevens, all of whom had 
built steamboats which had just not succeeded. 
But the fact remained that he was the first one to 
apply the principle successfully; and to him the 
credit belongs. Very soon there were a number 
of American steamboats in existence. In 181 1 
Nicholas Roosevelt introduced them on the 
Mississippi, while Stevens took his to the Delaware. 
During the War of 181 2 Fulton planned and built 
at New York, under the direction of Congress, a 
great steam frigate, with cannon-proof sides and 
heavy guns; she worked well, but peace was de- 
clared just before she was ready, otherwise she 
would probably have anticipated the feats of the 
Merrimac by half a century. 

It was a calamity to the city that this steam 
frigate was not ready earlier; for New York was 
blockaded closely throughout this war, which was 
far from popular with her merchants. Yet they 
ought to have seen that the war was most neces- 
sary to their commercial well-being, no less than 
to their honor and national self-respect; for the 
frigates of Britain had for a dozen years of nomi- 
nal peace kept the city under a more or less severe 
blockade, in the exercise of the odious right of 
search. They kept a strict watch over all out- 
going and incoming ships, hovering off the coast 
14 



2IO New York 

like hawks, and cruising in the lower bay, firing 
on coasters and merchantmen to bring them to. 
Once they even killed one of the crew of a coaster 
in this manner, and the outrage went unavenged. 
When war at last came, many of the ardent young 
men of the city, who had chafed under the insults 
to which they had been exposed, went eagerly into 
the business of privateering, which combined both 
profit and revenge. New York sent scores of 
privateers to sea to prey on the enemy's com- 
merce ; and formidable craft they were, especially 
toward the end of the war, when the typical priva- 
teer was a large brig or schooner of wonderful 
speed and beauty, well armed and heavily manned. 
The lucky cruiser, when many prizes were taken, 
brought wealth to owner, captain, and crew ; and 
some of the most desperate sea-struggles of the 
kind on record took place between New York 
privateers of this class and boat expeditions, sent 
to cut them out by hostile frigates or squadrons, — 
the most famous instance being the really remark- 
able fight of the brig General Armstrong at 
Fayal. 

With the close of the war, the beginning of im- 
migration from Europe on a vast scale, and the 
adoption of a more radically democratic State 
constitution, the history of old New York may be 
said to have come to an end, and that of the mod- 
em city, with its totally different conditions, to 



Democratic Rule an 

have begun. The town has never, before or since, 
had a population so nearly homogeneous as just 
after this second war with Great Britain; the 
English blood has never been so nearly dominant 
as at that time, nor the English speech so nearly 
the sole speech in common use. The Dutch lan- 
guage had died out, and the Dutch themselves had 
become completely assimilated. With the Hu- 
guenot French this was even more completely the 
case.' German was only spoken by an insignifi- 
cant and dwindling remnant. Of the Irish immi- 
grants, most had become absorbed in the popu- 
lation ; the remainder was too small to be of any 
importance. The negroes no longer formed a 
noteworthy element in the population, and grad- 
ual emancipation, begun in 1799, became complete 
by 1827. For thirty-five years after the Revo- 
lution the great immigration was from New Eng- 
land, and the consequent Jnflux of nearly pure 
English blood was enormous. The old New 
Yorkers regarded this "New England invasion," 
as they called it, with jealous hostility; but this 
feeling was a mere sentiment, for the newcomers 
speedily became almost indistinguishable from the 
old residents. Even in religious matters the 
people were more in unison than ever before or 
since. The bitter jealousies and antagonisms 

* However, one Huguenot church has always kept up its 
language, mainly for the use of foreigners. 



212 New York 

between the different Protestant sects, so charac- 
teristic of colonial times, had greatly softened; 
and Roman Catholicism was not as yet of impor- 
tance. There was still no widespread and grinding 
poverty, and there were no colossal fortunes. The 
conditions of civic or municipal life then were in 
no way akin to what they are now, and none of the 
tremendous problems with which we must now 
grapple had at that time arisen. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE GROWTH OF THE COMMERCIAL AND DEMO- 
CRATIC CITY. 182I-1860. 

IN 1820 New York City contained about a hun- 
dred and twenty-five thousand inhabitants. 
The demand for a more democratic State 
constitution found its reaHzation in the conven- 
tion of 1822. The constitutional amendments 
proposed and adopted at this time, and in the 
following years, were in the direction of increasing 
the direct influence of the people by widening the 
suffrage, and of decentralizing power and increas- 
ing the amount of local self-government. The 
Council of Appointment was abolished. In 1822 
the suffrage was given to all taxpayers; and in 
1826 all property qualifications were abolished, 
except in the case of negroes, who were still re- 
quired to be freeholders. It is noteworthy that 
the most bitter opponents of negro suffrage were 
the very men who most zealously championed 
universal suffrage for all white citizens, no matter 
how poor and ignorant ; while on the other hand, 
the old Federalists and Conservatives who stren- 
uously opposed universal suffrage, and prophesied 
that it would bring dire disaster on the State, 
favored granting equal rights to the blacks. It 

213 



214 New York 

is small wonder that the free blacks should gener- 
ally have voted with the Federalists, — precisely 
as at a later date in the Southern States, as for 
instance North Carolina, such of the free blacks as 
even in the days of slavery were allowed to vote, 
always followed the lead of the local gentry. The 
white mob which detested the white ' 'aristocrats," 
and believed in the most absolute democracy 
among the whites themselves, clamored loudly 
against the blacks, and favored the establishment 
of aristocratic and inferior castes separated by the 
color line. The conduct of the popular party 
toward the negroes was the reverse of cred- 
itable. 

Under the constitution of 1822 the mayor of 
New York was chosen by the municipal council; 
after 1834 he was elected by the citizens. The 
constitution of 1846, the high-water mark of 
democracy, which made some very good and a few 
very bad changes in the State government, af- 
fected the municipal system comparatively little, 
with the important exception that it provided for 
the election not only of local but of judicial officers. 
The election of judges by universal suffrage in this 
great city, even though it has worked much better 
than was expected, has nevertheless now and then 
worked badly. Still the long terms and high 
salaries, and above all the general popular appre- 
ciation of the high honor and dignity conferred by 



Growth of the City 215 

the office, have hitherto given us on the whole 
a very good bench. 

The distinguishing features of the Hfe of the city 
between 1820 and i860 were its steady and rapid 
growth in population, the introduction of an abso- 
lutely democratic system of government, the im- 
mense immigration from abroad, completely 
changing the ethnic character of the population, 
the wonderful growth of the Roman Catholic 
Church and the great material prosperity, to- 
gether with the vast fortunes made by many of the 
business men, usually of obscure and humble 
ancestry. 

The opening of the Erie Canal gave an extraor- 
dinary impetus to the development of the city. 
The canal had been planned, and reports concern- 
ing it drawn up, at different times by various New 
York citizens, notably by Gouvemeur Morris ; but 
the work was actually done, in spite of violent op- 
position, by De Witt Clinton. Clinton was, more 
than any other man, responsible for the intro- 
duction of the degrading system of spoils politics 
into the State ; most of his political work was mere 
faction fighting for his own advancement ; and he 
was too jealous of all competitors, and at the same 
time not a great enough man, ever to become an 
important figure in the national arena. But he 
was sincerely proud of his city and State, and very 
much interested in all philanthropic, scientific, and 



2i6 New York 

industrial movements to promote their honor and 
material welfare. He foresaw the immense bene- 
fits that would be brought about by the canal, and 
the practicability of constructing it; and by in- 
domitable resolution and effort he at last com- 
mitted the State to the policy he wished. In 1817 
the work was started, and in 1825 ^^ was com- 
pleted, and the canal opened. 

During the same period regular lines of steam- 
boats were established on both the Hudson and the 
Sound; and the steamboat service soon became 
of great commercial importance. It was a couple 
of decades later before the railroads became fac- 
tors in the city's development, but they soon com- 
pletely distanced the steamboats, and finally even 
the canal itself; and as line after line multiplied, 
they became the great inland feeders of New 
York's commerce. The electric telegraph likewise 
was introduced before the middle of the century ; 
and, as with the steamboat, its father, the man who 
first put it into practical operation, was a New 
Yorker, Samuel Morse, — though there were scores 
of men who had perceived its possibilities, and 
vainly striven to translate them into actual use- 
fulness. Steam transportation and electricity 
have been the two prime factors in the great com- 
mercial and industrial revolutions of this century ; 
and New York has produced the two men who 
deserve the most credit for their introduction. 



Growth of the City 217 

Fulton and Morse stand as typical of the inventive, 
mechanical, and commercial genius of the city at 
the mouth of the Hudson. 

Few commercial capitals have ever grown with 
more marvelous rapidity than New York. The 
great merchants and men of affairs who have built 
up her material prosperity, have not merely en- 
riched themselves and their city ; they have also 
played no inconsiderable part in that rapid open- 
ing up of the American continent during the pres- 
ent century, which has been rendered possible by 
the eagerness and far-reaching business ambition 
of commercial adventurers, wielding the wonder- 
ful tools forged by the science of our day. The 
merchant, the "railroad king," the capitalist who 
works or gambles for colossal stakes, bending to 
his purpose an intellect in its way as shrewd and 
virile as that of any statesman or warrior, — all 
these, and their compeers, are and have been 
among the most striking and important, although 
far from the noblest, figures of nineteenth-century 
America. 

Two New Yorkers of great note in this way may 
be instanced as representatives of their class, — 
John Jacob Astor and Cornelius Vanderbilt. As- 
tor was originally a German pedler, who came to 
the city immediately after the close of the Revo- 
lution. He went into the retail fur-trade, and by 
energy, thrift, and far-sightedness, soon pushed 



2i8 New York 

his way up so as to be able to command a large 
amoimt of capital ; and he forthwith embarked on 
ventures more extensive in scale. The fur- trade 
was then in the North almost what the trade in 
gold and silver had been in the South. Vast for- 
tunes were made in it, and the career of the fur- 
trader was checkered by romantic successes and 
hazardous vicissitudes. Astor made money with 
great rapidity, and entered on a course of rivalry 
with the huge fur companies of Canada. Finally, 
in 1809, he organized the American Fur Company, 
under the auspices of the State of New York, with 
no less a purpose than the establishment of a set- 
tlement of trappers and fur-traders at the mouth 
of the Columbia. He sent his parties out both by 
sea and overland, established his posts, and drove 
a thriving trade; and doubtless he would have 
anticipated by a generation the permanent settle- 
ment of Oregon, if the war had not broken out, 
and his colony been destroyed by the British. The 
most substantial portion of his fortune was made 
out of successful ventures in New York City real 
estate; and at his death he was one of the five 
richest men in the world. His greatest service to 
the city was founding the Astor Library. 

Vanderbilt was a Staten Island boy, whose 
parents were very poor, and who therefore had to 
work for his living at an early age. Before the JK 

War of 1 81 2, when a lad in his teens, he had been 



Growth of the City 219 

himself sailing a sloop as a ferry-boat, between 
Staten Island and New York, and soon had saved 
enough money to start a small line of them. After 
the war he saw the possibilities of the steamboat, 
and began to run one as captain, owning a share 
in it as well. He shortly saved enough to become 
his own capitalist, and removed to New York in 
1829. He organized steam lines on the Hudson 
and Sound, making money hand over hand ; and 
in 1 849 — the period of the CaHfomia gold fever — 
he turned his attention to ocean steamships, and 
for several years carried on a famous contest with 
the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, for the 
traffic across the Isthmus to California. He was 
drawn into antagonism with the filibuster Walker, 
because of his connection with the Central Ameri- 
can States, and became one of the forces which 
compassed that gray-eyed adventurer's downfall. 
Then he took to building and managing railways, 
and speculating in them, and by the end of his 
days had amassed a colossal fortime. The history 
of the Wall Street speculations in which he took 
part, forms much the least attractive portion of 
the record of his life. 

Astor and Vanderbilt were foremost and typical 
representatives of the commercial New York of 
their day, exactly as Hamilton and Jay were of 
the Revolutionary and post-Revolutionary city. 
Neither was of EngHsh blood; Astor was a 



220 New York 

German, and Vanderbilt a descendant of the old 
Dutch settlers. Both were of obscure parentage, 
and both hewed their way up from the ranks by 
sheer force of intellect and will-power. Of course 
neither deserves for a moment to be classed on the 
city's roll of honor with men like Hamilton and 
Jay, or like Cooper and Irving. 

Before the days of steamship, railroad, and tele- 
graph, were the days of the fast ' 'clippers," whose 
white wings sped over the ocean up to the time of 
the Civil War. The New York clippers, like those 
of Baltimore, were famous for their speed, size, and 
beauty. Their builders exhausted every expedi- 
ent to bring them to perfection; and for many 
years after steamers were built they maintained a 
nearly equal fight against these formidable rivals. 
Crack vessels among them repeatedly made the 
voyage to England in a fortnight. It is a curious 
fact that the United States, which only rose to 
power at the very end of the period of sailing- 
vessels, and which has not been able to hold her 
own among those nations whose sons go down to the 
sea in ships, should nevertheless, during the first 
half of the present century, have brought the art 
of building, handling — and when necessary, fight- 
ing — these same old-time sailing-ships, in all their 
varieties of man-of-war, privateer, merchantman, 
and whaler, to the highest point ever attained. 
The frigates and privateers were perfected during 



Growth of the City 221 

the War of 181 2 ; the merchant clippers were im- 
mensely improved after that date. The older 
vessels were slow, tubby craft; and they were 
speedily superseded by the lines of swift packet- 
ships, — such as the Blackball, Red Star and 
Swallow Tail — established one after the other 
by enterprising and venturesome New York mer- 
chants. The packet-ships sailed for European 
ports. Before the middle of the century, lines of 
clippers were established to trade, and also to 
carry passengers to California and the China seas. 
In size they sometimes went up to two thousand 
tons; and compared to European merchant ves- 
sels, their speed and safety were such that they 
commanded from shippers half as much again in 
payment for the freightage on cargoes of teas and 
other Eastern goods. 

The large importers, and their captains as well, 
made money rapidly by these ships ; yet now, from 
divers causes, the carrying-trade has slipped 
through their fingers. But the city's growth has 
not been checked by this loss. The commerce- 
bringing fleets of other nations throng its harbor, 
while its merchants retain their former energy, and 
command their former success in other lines ; and 
the steady and rapid growth of factories of many 
kinds has changed the city into a great manufac- 
turing center. There is no danger of any loss of 
commercial prosperity, nor of any falling off in the 



222 New York 

amount of wealth as a whole, nor of any diminu- 
tion in the ranks of the men who range from well- 
to-do to very rich. The danger arises from the 
increase of grinding poverty among vast masses of 
the population in certain quarters, and from the 
real or seeming increase in the inequality of con- 
ditions between the very rich and the very poor; 
in other words, as colossal fortunes grow up on the 
one hand, there grows up on the other a large 
tenement-house population, partly composed of 
wage-earners who never save anything, and partly 
of those who never earn quite enough to give their 
families even the necessaries of life. 

This ominous increase in the numbers of the 
class of the hopelessly poor is one among the in- 
juries which have to a greater or less degree offset 
the benefits accruing to the country during the 
present century, because of the unrestricted 
European immigration. There was considerable 
immigration from abroad even before the War of 
1 8i 2 ; but it did not become of great moment until 
after the close of the contest. The volume then 
swelled very rapidly. In 1818 and 181 9 over 
twenty thousand immigrants arrived in New York, 
and were reported at the mayor's office. Most 
of them were very poor and ignorant, and at first 
ill able to cope with their new surroundings. They 
housed in sheds, cellars, and rookeries of all kinds, 
and in winter time were reduced to desperate 



Growth of the City 223 

straits for food, thousands being supported for 
short periods by the charity of private citizens and 
of organized relief associations. They did not go 
out to the frontier, and Hke most of the immigrants 
of the present century preferred to huddle in the 
large cities rather than to go into the country. 
Year by year the mass of immigration increased, 
though with occasional and purely temporary 
fluctuations. By 1830 it had already become so 
great as to dwarf all movements of the kind which 
the world had hitherto seen ; and after the potato 
famine in Ireland and the revolutions of 1848 in 
continental Europe, fugitives from hunger or po- 
litical oppression came over by hundreds of thou- 
sands. A greater proportion of these immigrants, 
relatively to the population, made their homes in 
New York than in any other part of the coimtry. 
The large majority of them were of course from the 
lower or lower-middle classes. 

The immigration worked a complete ethnic 
overturn in the character of the population, — an 
overturn of which there had been several similar 
instances already in the city's history. The im- 
migrants and their children soon grew to outnum- 
ber the descendants of the old pre-Revolutionary 
inhabitants, and the process was hastened by the 
fact that very many of the latter, probably far more 
than half, themselves drifted westward, with the 
restless love of change so characteristic of their 



224 New York 

nation. There were many English, Scotch, and 
Welsh, and a few Scandinavians among the immi- 
grants, and these speedily amalgamated with, and 
became indistinguishable from, the natives. But 
by far the largest number — probably more than 
five-sixths of those settled in New York City dur- 
ing the half-century before the close of the Civil 
War — were Irish and Germans, the former being 
at this time much in the lead. 

The Germans had formed an important element 
of the city's population ever since the days of 
Leisler, who was himself a German, and, with the 
exception of Stuyvesant, the most important 
figure in the history of the colonial town. They 
were probably, in point of numbers and impor- 
tance, at no time lower than the fourth in rank 
among the nationalities which were being fused 
together to make New York citizens. By the 
beginning of the present century the descendants 
of the old German immigrants had become com- 
pletely Americanized. The new swarms of Ger- 
mans who came hither, revived the use of the 
German tongue ; and as they settled in large bod- 
ies, — often forming the entire population of cer- 
tain districts, — they clung pertinaciously to their 
own customs, kept to their own churches, and 
published their own newspapers. Nevertheless, 
the public-school system and the all-pervading 
energy of American life proved too severe solvents 



Growth of the City 225 

to be resisted even by the German tenacity. Some 
remained un-Americanized in a sodden, useless 
lump ; but after a generation or two this ceased to 
be the case with the majority. The children of 
the first generation were half, and the grandchil- 
dren in most cases wholly, Americanized, — to their 
own inestimable advantage. As long as they 
remained mere foreigners, speaking an alien 
tongue, they of course occupied a lower grade in 
the body politic and social than that to which their 
good qualities entitled them. As they became 
Americanized in speech and customs, they moved 
up to the same level with the native born. Per- 
haps two-thirds were nominally Protestants, and 
these had no religious prejudices to overcome or 
be hampered by. They were thrifty, hardwork- 
ing, and on the whole law-abiding, and they not 
only rose rapidly in the social scale, but as soon as 
they learned to speak our language by preference, 
as their native tongue, they became indistinguish- 
able from the other Americans with whom they 
mixed. They furnished leading men to all trades 
and professions, and many founded families of 
high social and political distinction. They ren- 
dered great service to the city by their efforts to 
cultivate a popular taste for music and for harm- 
less public pleasures. Only the fact that the 
Lutheran clergy clung to the German language, 
prevented their church from becoming the most 
15 



226 New York 

important of the Protestant churches. The Catho- 
lic or Celtic Irish formed, in point of numbers, 
the most important class among the new immi- 
grants. Those of their race who had come here 
in colonial days were for the most part only 
imported bond-servants and criminals. Unlike 
the Germans, they had never formed an element 
of appreciable weight in the community imtil after 
the Revolution. Soon after the opening of the 
present century they became the most numerous 
of the immigrants and began to form a class of 
New Yorkers whose importance steadily increased. 
They displayed little of the German frugality and 
aptitude for business, and hence remained to a far 
larger extent mere laborers, — comparatively few 
rising, at least for the first generation or two, to 
non-political positions of importance; and they 
furnished much more than their share to the city's 
turbulent and lawless elements, for in their new 
surroundings they were easily misled by both 
native and foreign-born demagogues and agitators. 
On the other hand, they have invariably proved 
admirable soldiers when the city has sent out her 
quota of troops in time of war; they have taken 
little part in anarchical and socialistic movements, 
and — though this is a quality of a more doubtful 
kind — they have mastered the intricacies of local 
politics with astonishing ease. The improvement 
in their material condition became very marked 



f 



Growth of the City 227 

after three or four decades. Moreover, their less 
fortunate quahties were such as inevitably at- 
tended the peculiar conditions of their life in the 
old country; and these gradually tended to dis- 
appear as the successive generations grew up on 
American soil. The fact that they already spoke 
English gave them an immense advantage, com- 
pared to the Germans, in that they were able from 
the outset to mingle freely in American life; but 
the difference of religion tended to keep at least 
the first two generations apart from the citizens 
of old American stock. The Irish, like the Ger- 
mans, came over in such numbers that they were 
able to introduce their own separate social life; 
but in both cases the ambitious and energetic 
among the descendants of the immigrants soon 
grew to realize that they must become thorough- 
going Americans in order to win the great prizes 
of American life, while every family that acquired 
wealth and culture desired nothing so much as to 
get a foothold in the upper circles of the American 
portion of the community. 

By the outbreak of the Civil War the flood of 
immigration had swamped the older "native 
American" stock, as far as numbers went. The 
mixed blood of New York had been mixed still 
further. It is curious to trace the successive 
additions of race elements to the population of the 
city. At its foimding the Dutch were dominant, 



228 New York 

but with a considerable Walloon element, which 
was soon absorbed by the Hollanders, while there 
was a larger element of French Huguenots, who 
kept coming in, and were absorbed more slowly. 
There were also many English, and a few Ger- 
mans. After the final English conquest there 
was a fair amount of immigration from England 
and Scotland; the Huguenots also continued to 
come in for a little while, and there was a large 
German and a considerable Scotch-Irish immi- 
gration. At the end of the Revolution all of these 
peoples had grown to use the English tongue, and 
were fast being welded together; but the great 
majority of the citizens were non-English by 
blood. There then began a great inrush of New 
Englanders; and for the first time the citizens of 
English blood grew to outnumber those of any 
other strain, — all however being soon fused to- 
gether, and becoming purely American, The 
immense immigration between 1820 and i860 
changed this. By the latter date the men of Irish 
birth and blood had become more numerous than 
any others; the Germans, at some distance off, 
next; while the native Americans, who still led 
and controlled the others, were a close third. Of 
course, however, the older races of the city made 
the mold into which the newer were poured. The 
task is sometimes slow and difficult, but in the end 
the German or Irishman is always Americanized ; 



Growth of the City 229 

and his influence upon the country of his adoption, 
although considerable, is as nothing compared to 
the influence of the country upon him. 

The wonderful growth of the Catholic Church 
was of course due to the immigration, especially 
of the Irish. In colonial times Roman Catholi- 
cism had not been tolerated. When complete re- 
ligious freedom was established, with the organiza- 
tion of the new government, the Catholics began 
to come in, and soon after the Revolution they 
built a church; but its congregation led a fitful 
life for the first thirty years. There were years of 
prosperity, when a convent, a school, etc., were 
established; and years of adversity, when they 
were abandoned. The congregation was, of 
course, composed mainly of immigrants, chiefly 
Irish, even thus early; but there were enough 
Germans and French to make it necessary to hold 
services also in those languages. But on the 
whole the Church at this time languished, and 
religious instruction and supervision were pro- 
vided for but a small portion of the Catholic im- 
migrants. Accordingly, they and their children 
became to a very large extent Protestant. After 
the close of the War of 181 2, matters were radi- 
cally changed. New York became the permanent 
seat of a bishopric, a multitude of priests came in, 
churches were built, and the whole organization 
sprang into vigorous life. The immense Irish 



230 New York 

immigration gave the Church the stamp it yet 
retains, and settled that its language should be 
English, thus turning it into a potent force for 
Americanizing the Catholic immigrants from con- 
tinental Europe. As early as 1826 the New York 
Catholics murmured against having a French 
bishop put over them ; though by that time it had 
been found necessary to establish separate German 
churches, as the German immigration had also 
begun. So enormous had been the inrush during 
the preceding dozen years, that at this date the 
Catholics already formed in the neighborhood of a 
fifth of the city's population. The Protestant 
sects became seriously alarmed at this portentous 
growth of the Church of Rome, and for the thirty 
years preceding the Civil War there was fierce 
religious and political agitation against it, the 
feeling growing so bitter that there were furious 
riots, accompanied with much bloodshed, between 
Catholic and Protestant mobs in the great cities, 
including New York. Nevertheless, the Church 
went on steadily growing; and much, though by 
no means all, of the bitterness gradually wore 
away. Catholicism gained in numbers by con- 
verts from among the native Americans, often of 
high social standing; though this gain was prob- 
ably much more than offset by the loss of Catholic 
immigrants who drifted into Protestantism. The 
Irish have formed the mainstay of the Chiirch in 



Growth of the City 231 

America; and this, and the readiness with which 
on the whole it has adapted itself to American 
conditions, has determined its development. The 
Catholic Church in Ireland, unlike the Catholic 
Church in most portions of continental Europe, has 
been the Church of popular feeling ; and American 
Catholicism also gradually grew to identify itself 
with all movements in the interests of the masses 
of the people, while it was likewise affected by the 
American theories of complete religious toleration, 
and separation of Church from State. In other 
words, it tended to become Americanized. It was 
at first, outside of Baltimore, and the French, 
Spanish, and Indian missions, a church of poor 
immigrants, chiefly laborers. Many of the de- 
scendants of these immigrants acquired wealth, 
or rose to distinction in the community, and the 
different nationalities began to fuse together, and 
to assimilate themselves in speech and customs to 
the old American stock. In consequence, the 
Church gradually tended to grow into one of the 
regular American churches, even though still all- 
powerful among the immigrants ; and it began to 
possess its proper share of men of high social and 
intellectual position. 

When, in the twenties, the immigration began 
to attain formidable dimensions, it excited much 
uneasiness in the minds of many of the native 
citizens, who disliked and looked down on the 



232 New York 

foreigners. Much of this feeling was wholly iin- 
justifiable, while much of it was warranted by the 
fact that the new-comers contributed far more 
than their share to the vice, crime, misery, and 
pauperism of the community. They were popu- 
larly held responsible for various epidemics of 
disease, — notably a terrible visitation of cholera 
in 1832. 

New York having been peopled by relays of 
immigrants of different nationality, each relay in 
turn, as it became Americanized, looked down 
upon the next, as has already been said. So it is 
at the present day. The grandchildren of the 
Germans and Irish, to whom such strenuous ob- 
jection was made sixty years ago, now in turn 
protest against the shoals of latter-day Sclavonic 
and Italian incomers. Race and religious antipa- 
thy have caused not a few riots during the 
present century, in New York; and this was es- 
pecially the case during the period covered by the 
forty years preceding the Civil War. 

However, riots of various kinds were common all 
through this period ; for the city mob was far more 
disorderly and less under control than at present. 
Nor were the foreigners by any means the only 
ones to be found in its ranks, for it contained a 
large and very dangerous element of native Ameri- 
can roughs. One specially frequent form of riot 
was connected with the theaters. The mob was 



Growth of the City 233 

very patriotic and boisterously anti-British; and 
on the other hand many EngHsh actors who came 
to America to make money were unwise enough 
to openly express their contempt for the people 
from whom they were to make it. Rival theatrical 
managers would carefully circulate any such re- 
marks, and the mob would then swarm down to 
the theater, fill it in a dense mass, and pelt the 
unfortunate offender off the boards as soon as he 
appeared. The misused actor was not always 
a foreigner ; for a like treatment was occasionally 
awarded to any American against whom the popu- 
lace bore a grudge. Certain of the newspapers — 
not a few of which were edited by genuine Jeffer- 
son Bricks — were always ready to take a hand in 
hounding down any actor whom they had cause 
to dislike. Some of these outbreaks were very 
serious; and they culminated in 1849 i^i the 
"Astor Place," or "Opera-house" riot. On this 
occasion the mob tried to gut the theater where an 
obnoxious English actor was playing, but were 
held in check by the pohce. They then gathered 
by thousands in the streets, and were finally fired 
into by the troops, and dispersed with a loss of 
twenty killed, — a most salutary and excellent 
lesson. 

Other riots were due to more tangible troubles. 
The enormous immigration had created a huge 
class of imfortimates who could with difficulty 



234 New York 

earn their daily bread, and any period of sudden 
and severe distress threw them into a starving 
condition. There were one or two great fires 
which were really appalling calamities to the city ; 
and the terrible panic of 1836-37 produced the 
most widespread want and suffering. Flour went 
up to fifteen dollars a barrel. The poor were cast 
into abject misery, and were inflamed by dema- 
gogues, who raised the cry of ' 'the poor against 
the rich," and denounced in especial the flour and 
grain dealers. The "Bread Riots" of January, 
1837, were the result. A large mob assembled in 
response to placards headed ' ' Bread ! Meat ! Rent ! 
Fuel ! their prices must come down ! " and assailed 
and sacked some of the stores and warehouses, 
strewing the streets with flour and wheat. It was 
toward nightfall before the police could restore 
order. There were also savage labor riots, gener- 
ally caused when the trades-unions ordered a 
strike, and strove to prevent other workmen from 
taking the places of the strikers. In all of these 
cases the masses of the rioters were foreign 
born. 

There were also riots against the Abolitionists; 
their meetings were broken up and their leaders 
sometimes maltreated. Moreover there were 
bloody encounters between native American and 
foreign — usually Irish — mobs. Finally there were 
frequent riots about election time, at the great 



Ruin:i after tht- Great Fire, iSjj 



Growth of the City 235 

open-air meetings and processions, between the 
adherents of the rival parties. 

Politically, the steady movement toward mak- 
ing the government absolutely democratic was 
checked by curious side-fights. The Whig party 
was the regular, and at times the successful, op- 
ponent of the Democracy throughout the middle 
part of this period. The Democratic party con- 
tained, as always, the bulk of the foreign and 
Catholic voters ; its strength lay in the poor wards. 
Hence it was always in danger when any new 
popular faction arose. In 1830 a short-lived labor 
party was started, but this came to nothing. In 
1834 the first elective mayor was chosen by imi- 
versal suffrage. The contest was very close; and 
the Democrat, Lawrence, was chosen over the 
Whig, Verplanck, by only a couple of hundred 
votes, out of thirty-five thousand. Among the 
heads of the Democratic party were still to be 
found some influential merchants and the like; 
as yet the mere demagogue politicians did not dare 
to make themselves the titular leaders. Law- 
rence was a wealthy gentleman. On New Year's 
day he threw open his doors to all callers, as was 
then the general custom. But the mass of ward- 
leaders and political ' 'heelers" of every kind who 
thronged his house, turned it into a bear garden, 
destroying everything until he had to summon the 
police to rid him of his guests. The Democracy 



236 New York 

was not yet quite used, to power, and did not know 
how to behave. 

A year or two later one of the labor parties led a 
brief career in the city, arising — as has usually 
been the case — from a split in the Democratic 
party. Its adherents styled themselves ' 'equal- 
rights men" or *'anti-monopolists." By outsid- 
ers they were usually dubbed "Loco-focos," be- 
cause at the outset of their career, in the course of 
a stormy meeting of the city Democracy in a hall, 
their opponents put out the gas ; whereupon they, 
having thoughtfully provided themselves with 
loco-foco matches, relit the gas, and brought the 
meeting to a triumphant close. The chief points 
in their political creed were hostility to banks and 
corporations generally, and a desire to have all 
judges elected for short terms, so as to have them 
amenable to the people, — that is, to have them 
administer the law, not in accordance with the 
principles of justice, but in accordance with the 
popular whim of the moment. They split up the 
Democratic party, and thus were of service to the 
Whigs during the two or three years of their exist- 
ence. 

The Native American party began to make a 
stir about the time the Loco-focos came to an end. 
The Native Americans represented simply hostil- 
ity to foreigners in general, and Catholic foreigners 
in particular. They therefore had no permanent 



Growth of the City 237 

root, as they merely represented a prejudice, — 
for depriving foreigners already here of political 
rights is a piece of iniquitous folly, having no con- 
nection with the undoubted and evident wisdom 
of limiting immigration to our shores, and exer- 
cising a rigid supervision thereover. The Native 
Americans led an intermittent party life for a score 
of years, ending as the Know-nothings, who were 
swept out of sight by the rise of the Republican 
party. In 1841 the Catholics very foolishly and 
wrongfully tried to form a separate party of their 
own, on account of irritation over the disposal of 
the public -school fund. They insisted that a por- 
tion of it should be given to them for their secta- 
rian schools, and organized a party to support only 
such candidates as would back their demands. 
But by this time the people had become wedded 
to the public-school system, and the effort proved 
wholly fruitless. The only result was to give a 
great start to the Native American party, which 
as a consequence, in 1844, actually carried the 
mayoralty election. 

In spite of occasional interludes of this kind, 
however, the Democratic party, under the leader- 
ship of Tammany Hall, in the long run always 
recovered their hold on "^e reins. As the years 
went by, the party escaped more and more from 
the control of the well-to-do merchants and busi- 
ness men, and fell into the hands of professional 



238 New York 

politicians of unsavory character. The judiciary 
was made elective in 1 846 ; and most local officers 
were thenceforth chosen in this manner. The 
mass of poor and ignorant voters, mainly foreign 
bom, but drilled and led by unscrupulous Ameri- 
cans, held the command, and contemptuously 
disregarded their former leaders. Business men 
shrank from going into politics. There was not 
much buying of voters, but election frauds, and 
acts of brutal intimidation and violence at the 
polls, became more and more common. The Fed- 
eral, State, and local offices were used with abso- 
lute shamelessness to reward active political work. 
By the fifties, politics had sunk as low as they well 
could sink. Fernando Wood, an unscrupulous 
and cunning demagogue, whose financial honesty 
was more than doubtful, skilled in manipulating 
the baser sort of ward politicians, became the /A 

' 'boss" of the city, and was finally elected mayor. 
His lieutenants were brutal rowdies of the type of 
Isaiah Rynders, his right hand man; they ruled 
by force and fraud, and were hand in glove with 
the disorderly and semi-criminal classes. Both 
Wood and Rynders were native Americans, the 
former of English, the latter of Dutch ancestry. 
It would be difficult to pick out any two foreign- 
bom men of similar stamp who were as mischiev- 
ous. In 1850 street railways were started, and the 
franchises for them were in many cases procured 



; 1; 



Growth of the City 239 

by the bribery of the Common Council. This 
proved the final touch; and it is from this year 
that the hopeless corruption of the local municipal 
legislature dates. In 1857 the State Legislature 
at Albany began a long and active course of dab- 
bling in our municipal matters — sometimes wisely 
and sometimes foolishly — by passing a charter 
which divided responsibility and power among the 
different local officers, and needlessly multiplied 
the latter by keeping up the fiction of separate 
governments for the county and city, which had 
really become identical. They also created local 
boards and commissions which were appointed by 
the State, not the city, authorities. This last act 
aroused intense hostility among the city poli- 
ticians; especially was this the case in regard to 
the new PoHce Board. The city authorities 
wished at all costs to retain the power of appoint- 
ing and ruling the police in their own hands ; and 
they resisted by force of arms the introduction of 
the new system. Fernando Wood's old ' 'munici- 
pal" police and the new State, or so-called ' 'met- 
ropolitan" police fought for a couple of days in the 
streets, with considerable bloodshed. But the 
courts declared in favor of the constitutionality 
of the acts of the legislature, and the municipal 
authorities were forced to abandon their opposi- 
tion. 

Throughout this period New York's public and 



240 New York 

private buildings were increasing in size and costli- 
ness as rapidly as in ntunbers. It is difficult to say 
as much for their beauty, as a whole. Neverthe- 
less, some of them are decidedly handsome, — 
notably some of the churches, such as Trinity, and 
above all St. Patrick's, the cornerstone of which 
was laid in 1858. A really great piece of archi- 
tectural engineering was the Croton aqueduct \ 
which was opened for use in 1 842 . 

The city had also done something for that higher 'i 

national development, the lack of which makes I 

material prosperity simply a source of national 
vulgarization. She did her share in helping for- 
ward the struggling schools of American painters 
and sculptors ; and she did more than her share in 
founding American literature. Sydney Smith's 
famous query, propounded in 1820, was quite jus- 
tified by the facts. Nobody of the present day 
does read any American book which was then 
written, with two exceptions ; and the wit'^y Dean 
could scarcely be expected to have any knowledge 
of Irving' s first purely local work, while probably (^ 

hardly a soul in England had so much as heard of 
that really wonderful volume, "The Federalist." 
Both of these were New York books; and New 
York may fairly claim to have been the birthplace 
of American literature. Immediately after 1820 
Washington Irving and Fenimore Cooper won 
world-wide fame; while Bryant was chief of a 



i^ 



Growth of the City 241 

group of poets which included men like Rodman 
Drake. For the first time we had a literature 
worthy of being so called, which was not saturated 
with the spirit of servile colonialism, the spirit of 
humble imitation of things European. Our politi- 
cal life became full and healthy only after we had 
achieved political independence ; and it is quite as 
true that we never have done, and never shall do, 
anything really worth doing, whether in literature 
or art, except when working distinctively as Amer- 
icans. 

We are not yet free from the spirit of colonialism 
in art and letters ; but the case was, and is, much 
worse with our purely social life, — or at least with 
that portion of it which ought to be, and asserts 
itself to be, but emphatically is not, our best social 
life. In the "Potiphar Papers," Mr. Curtis, a 
New Yorker of whom all New Yorkers can be 
proud, has left a description which can hardly be 
called a caricature of fashionable New York society 
as it was in the decade before the war. It is not 
an attractive picture. The city then contained 
nearly three-quarters of a million inhabitants, and 
the conditions of life were much as they are to-day. 
The era of railroads and steamships was well tmder 
way; all the political and social problems and 
evils which now exist, existed then, often in 
aggravated form. The mere commercial classes 

were absorbed in making money, — a pursuit 
16 



242 New York 

which of course becomes essentially ignoble when 
followed as an end and not as a means. It had 
become very easy to travel in Europe, and im- 
mense shoals of American tourists went thither 
every season, deriving but doubtful benefit from 
their tour. New York possessed a large wealthy 
class which did not quite know how to get most 
pleasure from its money, and which had not been 
trained, as all good citizens of the republic should 
be trained, to realize that in America every man 
of means and leisure must do some kind of work, 
whether in politics, in literature, in science, or in 
what, for lack of a better word, may be called 
philanthropy, if he wishes really to enjoy life, and 
to avoid being despised as a drone in the com- 
munity. Moreover, they failed to grasp the infinite 
possibilities of enjoyment, of interest, and of use- 
fulness, which American life offers to every man, 
rich or poor, if he have only heart and head. With 
singular poverty of imagination they proceeded 
on the assumption that to enjoy their wealth they 
must slavishly imitate the superficial features, 
and the defects rather than the merits, of the life 
of the wealthy classes of Europe, instead of bor- 
rowing only its best traits, and adapting even 
these to their own surroundings. They put 
wealth above everything else, and therefore hope- 
lessly vulgarized their lives. The shoddy splen- 
dors of the second French Empire naturally 



u: 



Growth of the City 243 

appealed to them, and so far as might be they 
imitated its ways. Dress, manners, amusements, 
— all were copied from Paris ; and when they went 
to Europe, it was in Paris that they spent most of 
their time. To persons of intelligence and force 
their lives seemed equally dull at home and 
abroad. They took little interest in literature 
or politics ; they did not care to explore and hunt 
and travel in their own country; they did not 
have the taste for athletic sport which is so often 
the one redeeming feature of the gilded youth of 
to-day, and which, if not very much when taken 
purely by itself, is at least something. Fashion- 
able society was composed of two classes. There 
were, first, the people of good family, — those 
whose forefathers at some time had played their 
parts manfully in the world, and who claimed 
some shadowy superiority on the strength of this 
memory of the past, unbacked by any proof of 
merit in the present. Secondly, there were those 
who had just made money, — the father having 
usually merely the money-getting faculty, the 
presence of which does not necessarily imply the 
existence of any other worthy quality whatever, 
the rest of the family possessing only the absorbing 
desire to spend what the father had earned. In 
the summer they all went to Saratoga or to 
Europe ; in winter they came back to New York. 
Fifth Avenue was becoming the fashionable street. 



244 New York 

and on it they built their brownstone-front houses, 
all alike outside, and all furnished in the same 
style within, — heavy furniture, gilding, mirrors, 
glittering chandeliers. If a man was very rich he 
had a few feet more frontage, and more gilding, 
more mirrors, and more chandeliers. There was 
one incessant round of gaiety, but it possessed no 
variety whatever, and little interest. 

Of course there were plenty of exceptions to all 
these rules. There were many charming houses, 
there was much pleasant social life, just as there 
were plenty of honest politicians ; and there were 
multitudes of men and women well fitted to per- 
form the grave duties and enjoy the great rewards 
of American life. But taken as a whole, the fash- 
ionable and political life of New York in the decade 
before the Civil War offers an instructive rather 
than an attractive spectacle. 






CHAPTER XIV. 

RECENT HISTORY. 1860-1890. 

IN i860 New York had over eight hundred 
thousand inhabitants. During the thirty- 
years that have since passed, its population 
has nearly doubled. If the city limits were en- 
larged, like those of London and Chicago, so as to 
take in the suburbs, the population would amount 
to some three millions. Recently there has been 
a great territorial expansion northward, beyond 
the Haarlem, by the admission of what is known 
as the Annexed District. The growth of wealth 
has fully kept pace with the growth of population. 
The city is one of the two or three greatest com- 
mercial and manufacturing centers of the world. 

The ten years between i860 and 1870 form the 
worst decade in the city's political annals, al- 
though the somber picture is relieved by touches 
of splendid heroism, martial prowess, and civic 
devotion. At the outbreak of the Civil War the 
city was — as it has since continued to be — the 
stronghold of the Democratic party in the North ; 
and unfortunately, during the Rebellion, while the 
Democratic party contained many of the loyal, 
it also contained all of the disloyal, elements. A 
Democratic victory at the polls, hardly, if at all, 

245 



246 New York 

less than a Confederate victory in the field, meant 
a Union defeat. A very large and possibly a 
controlling element in the city Democracy was at 
heart strongly distmion in sentiment, and showed 
the feeling whenever it dared. 

At the outset of the Civil War there was even an 
effort made to force the city into active rebellion. 
The small local Democratic leaders, of the type of 
Isaiah Rynders, the brutal and turbulent ruffians 
who led the mob and controlled the politics of the 
lower wards, openly and defiantly threatened to 
make common cause with the South, and to forbid 
the passage of Union troops through the city. 
The mayor, Fernando Wood, in January, 1861, 
proclaimed disunion to be "a fixed fact" in a 
message to the Common Council, and proposed 
that New York should herself secede and become 
a free city, with but a nominal duty upon imports. 
The independent commonwealth was to be named 
' 'Tri-Insula," as being composed of three islands, — 
Long, Staten, and Manhattan. The Common i 

Coimcil, a corrupt body as disloyal as Wood him- ' \ 

self, received the message enthusiastically, and 
had it printed and circulated wholesale. 1 ; 

But when Sumter was fired on the whole current m \ 

changed like magic. There were many more good 
men than bad in New York; but they had been 
supine, or selfish, or indifferent, or imdecided, and i 

so the bad had had it all their own way. The 



Recent History 247 

thtinder of Sumter's guns waked the heart of the 
people to passionate loyalty. The bulk of the 
Democrats joined with the Republicans to show 
by word and act their fervent and patriotic de- 
votion to the Union. Huge mass-meetings were 
held, and regiment after regiment was organized 
and sent to the front. Shifty Fernando Wood, 
true to his nature, went with the stream, and was 
loudest in proclaiming his horror of rebellion. The 
city, through all her best and bravest men, pledged 
her faithful and steadfast support to the govern- 
ment at Washington. The Seventh Regiment of 
the New York National Guards, by all odds the 
best regiment in the United States Militia, was the 
first in the whole country to go to the front and 
reach Washington, securing it against any sudden 
surprise. 

The Union men of New York kept their pledge 
of loyalty in spirit and letter. Taking advantage 
of the intensity of the loyal excitement, they even 
elected a Republican mayor. The New Yorkers 
of means were those whose part was greatest in 
sustaining the nation's credit, while almost every 
high-spirited yoimg man in the city went into the 
army. The city, from the beginning to the end 
of the war, sent her sons to the front by scores of 
thousands. Her troops alone would have formed 
a large army ; and on a hundred battlefields, and 
throughout the harder trials of the long, dreary 



248 New York 

campaigns, they bore themselves with high cour- 
age and stern, xmyielding resolution. Those who 
by a hard lot were forced to stay at home busied 
themselves in caring for the men at the front, or 
for their widows and orphans; and the Sanitary 
Commission, the Allotment Commission, and other 
kindred organizations which did incalculable good, 
originated in New York. 

Yet the very energy with which New York sent 
her citizen soldiery to the front, left her exposed 
to a terrible danger. Much of the low foreign 
element, as well as the worst among the native- 
bom roughs, had been hostile to the war all along, 
and a ferocious outbreak was produced by the 
enforcement of the draft in July, 1863. The mob, 
mainly foreign, especially Irish, but reinforced by 
all the native rascality of the city, broke out for 
three days in what are known as the draft riots. 
They committed the most horrible outrages, their 
hostility being directed especially against the unfor- 
timate negroes, many of whom they hung or beat 
to death with lingering cruelty ; and they attacked 
various charitable institutions where negroes were 
cared for. They also showed their hatred to the 
national government and its defenders in every 
way, and even set out to bum down a hospital 
filled with woimded Union soldiers, besides mob- 
bing all government officials. From attacking 
government property they speedily went to 



Recent History 249 

assailing private property as well, burning and 
plundering the houses of rich and poor alike, and 
threatened to destroy the whole city in their 
anarchic fury, — the criminal classes, as always in 
such a movement, taking the control into their 
own hands. Many of the baser Democratic poli- 
ticians, in order to curry favor with the mob, 
sought to prevent effective measures being taken 
against it; and even the Democratic governor, 
Seymour, an estimable man of high private char- 
acter, but utterly unfit to grapple with the times 
that tried men's souls, took refuge in temporizing, 
half measures, and /concessions. The Roman 
Catholic archbishop and priests opposed and de- 
nounced the rioters with greater or less boldness, 
according to their individual temperaments. 

But the governing authorities, both national 
and municipal, acted with courage and energy. 
The American people are good-natured to the 
point of lax indifference; but once roused, they 
act with the most straightforward and practical 
resolution. Much fear had been expressed lest 
the large contingent of Irish among the police and 
State troops would be lukewarm or doubtful, but 
throughout the crisis they showed to the full as 
much courage and steadfast loyalty as their asso- 
ciates of native origin. One of the most deeply 
mourned victims of the mob was the gallant 
Colonel O'Brien of the Eleventh New York 



250 New York 

Volunteers, who had dispersed a crowd of rioters 
with considerable slaughter, and was afterward 
caught by them when alone, and butchered under 
circumstances of foul and revolting brutality. 

Most of the real working-men refused to join 
with the rioters, except when overawed and forced 
into their ranks ; and many of them formed them- || 

selves into armed bodies, and assisted to restore 
order. The city was bare of troops, for they had 
all been sent to the front to face Lee at Gettysburg ; 
and the police at first could not quell the mob. 
As regiment after regiment was hurried back to 
their assistance desperate street-fighting took 
place. The troops and police were thoroughly 
aroused, and attacked the rioters with the most 
wholesome desire to do them harm. In a very 
short time after the forces of order put forth their 
strength the outbreak was stamped out, and a 
lesson inflicted on the lawless and disorderly which 
they never entirely forgot. Two millions of prop- 
erty had been destroyed, and many valuable lives 
lost. But over twelve hundred rioters were slain, 
— an admirable object lesson to the remainder. 

It was several years before the next riot oc- 
curred. This was of a race or religious character. 
The different nationalities in New York are in the 
habit of parading on certain days, — a particularly 
senseless and objectionable custom. The Orange- 
men on this occasion paraded on the anniversary 



Recent History 251 

of the Battle of the Boyne, with the usual array 
of flags and banners, covered with mottoes espe- 
cially insulting to the Celtic Irish ; the latter threat- 
ened to stop the procession, and made the at- 
tempt; but the mihtia had been called out, and 
after a moment's sharp fighting, in which three of 
their number and seventy or eighty rioters were 
slain, the mob was scattered to the four winds. 
For the last twenty years no serious riots have 
occurred, and no mob has assembled which the 
police could not handle without the assistance of 
the State troops. The outbreaks that have taken 
place have almost invariably been caused by 
strikes or other labor troubles. Yet the general 
order and peacefulness should not blind us to the 
fact that there exists ever in our midst a slumber- 
ing "volcano under the city," as under all other 
large cities of the civilized world. This danger 
must continue to exist as long as our rich men look 
at life from a standpoint of silly frivolity, or else 1 
pursue a commercial career in a spirit of ferocious 
greed and disregard of justice, while the poor feel 
with sullen anger the presstire of many evils, — 
some of their own making, and some not, — and 
are far more sensible of the wrongs they suffer than 
of the folly of trying to right them tmder the lead 
of ignorant visionaries or criminal demagogues. 

For several years after the war there was a 
perfect witches' Sabbath of political corruption 



252 New York 

in New York City, which culminated during the 
mayoralty of Oakey Hall, who was elected in 1869. 
The Democratic party had absolute control of the 
municipal government; and this meant that the 
city was at the mercy of the ring of utterly un- 
scrupulous and brutal politicians who then con- 
trolled that party, and who in time of need had 
friends among some of their so-called Republican 
opponents on whom they could always rely. Re- 
peating, ballot-box stuffing, fraudulent voting and 
counting of votes, and every kind of violence and 
intimidation at the polls turned the elections into 
criminal farces. The majorities by which the IB 

city was carried for the Democratic presidential 
candidate Seymour in 1868, represented the worst 
electoral frauds which the coimtry ever witnessed, 
— far surpassing even those by which Polk had 
been elected over Clay. 

This was also the era of gigantic stock-swindling. 
The enormously rich stock-speculators of Wall 
Street in their wars with one another and against 
the general public, found ready tools and allies to 
be hired for money in the State and city politi- 
cians, and in judges who were acceptable alike to 
speculators, politicians, and mob. There were 
continual contests for the control of railway sys- 
tems, and "operations" in stocks which barely 
missed being criminal, and which branded those 
who took part in them as infamous in the sight of 



Recent History 253 

all honest men; and the courts and legislative 
bodies became parties to the iniquity of men com- 
posing that most dangerous of all classes, the 
wealthy criminal class. 

Matters reached their climax in the feats of the 
' 'Tweed Ring." William M, Tweed was the mas- 
ter spirit among the politicians of his own party, 
and also secured a hold on a number of the local 
Republican leaders of the baser sort. He was a 
coarse, jovial, able man, utterly without scruple 
of any kind ; and he organized all of his political 
allies and adherents into a gigantic "ring" to 
plunder the city. Incredible sums of money were 
stolen, especially in the construction of the new 
Court House. When the frauds were discovered, 
Tweed, secure in his power, asked in words that 
have become proverbial, ' 'What are you going to 
do about it?" But the end came in 1871. Then 
the decent citizens, irrespective of party, banded 
together, urged on by the newspapers, especially 
the Times and Harper's Weekly, — for the city 
press deserves the chief credit for the defeat of 
Tweed. At the fall elections the ring candidates 
were overwhelmingly defeated; and the chief 
malefactors were afterward prosecuted, and many 
of them imprisoned, Tweed himself dying in a 
felon's cell. The offending judges were im- 
peached, or resigned in time to escape impeach- 
ment. 



254 New York 

For the last twenty years our politics have been 
better and purer, though with plenty of corruption 
and jobbery left still. There are shoals of base, 
ignorant, vicious "heelers" and "ward workers," 
who form a solid, well-disciplined army of evil, 
led on by abler men whose very ability renders 
them dangerous. Some of these leaders are per- 
sonally corrupt ; others are not, but do almost as 
much harm as if they were, because they divorce 
political from private morality. As a prominent 
politician recently phrased it, they believe that 
" the purification of politics is an iridescent dream ; 
the decalogue and the golden rule have no place 
in a political campaign." The cynicism, no less 
silly than vicious, with which such men regard 
political life is repaid by the contemptuous anger 
with which they themselves are regarded by all 
men who are proud of their coimtry and wish her 
well. 

If the citizens can be thoroughly waked up, and 
a plain, naked issue of right and wrong presented 
to them, they can always be trusted. The trouble 
is that in ordinary times the self-seeking political 
mercenaries are the only persons who both keep 
alert and understand the situation; and they 
commonly reap their reward. The mass of vicious 
and ignorant voters — especially among those of 
foreign origin — forms a trenchant weapon forged 
ready to their hand, and presents a standing menace 



I 



'II ' 



Recent History 255 

to our prosperity ; and the selfish and short-sighted 
indifference of decent men is only one degree less 
dangerous. Yet of recent years there has been 
among men of character and good standing a 
steady growth of interest in, and of a feeling of 
responsibility for, our politics. This otherwise 
most healthy growth has been at times much 
hampered and warped by the political ignorance 
and bad judgment of the leaders in the movement. 
Too often the educated men who without having 
had any practical training as politicians yet turn 
their attention to politics, are and remain utterly 
ignorant of the real workings of our governmental 
system, and in their attitude toward our public 
men oscillate between excessive credulity concern- 
ing their idol of the moment and jealous, ignorant 
prejudice against those with whom they tem- 
porarily disagree. They forget, moreover, that 
the man who really counts in the world is the doer, 
not the mere critic, — the man who actually does 
the work, even if roughly and imperfectly, not the 
man who only talks or writes about how it ought 
to be done. 

Neither the unintelligent and rancorous par- 
tisan, nor the unintelligent and rancorous inde- 
pendent, is a desirable member of the body politic ; 
and it is imfortunately true of each of them that 
he seems to regard with special and sour hatred, 
not the bad man, but the good man with whom he 



256 New York 

politically differs. Above all, every young man 
should realize that it is a disgrace to him not to 
take active part in some way in the work of gov- 
erning the city. Whoever fails to do this, fails 
notably in his duty to the Commonwealth. 

The character of the immigration to the city is 
changing. The Irish, who in i860 formed three- 
fifths of the foreign-born population, have come 
in steadily lessening mmibers, until the Germans 
stand well at the head; while increasing multi- 
tudes of Italians, Poles, Bohemians, Russian Jews, 
and Hungarians — both Sclaves and Magyars — 
continually arrive. The English and Scandi- 
navian elements among the immigrants have like- 
wise increased. At the present time four-fifths 
of New York's population are of foreign birth or 
parentage ; and among them there has been as yet 
but little race intermixture, though the rising 
generation is as a whole well on the way to com- 
plete Americanization. Certainly hardly a tenth 
of the people are of old Revolutionary American 
stock. The Catholic Church has continued to 
grow at a rate faster than the general rate of in- 
crease. The Episcopalian and Lutheran are the 
only Protestant churches whereof the growth has 
kept pace with that of the population. 

The material prosperity of the city has increased 
steadily. There has been a marked improvement 
in architecture; and one really great engineering 



Recent History 257 

work, the bridge across the East River, was com- 
pleted in 1883. The stately and beautiful River- 
side Drive, skirting the Hudson, along the hills 
which front the river, from the middle of the island 
northward, is well worth mention. It is one of the 
most striking roads or streets of which any city 
can boast, and the handsome houses that are 
springing up along it bid fair to make the neighbor- 
hood the most attractive portion of New York. 
Another attractive feature of the city is Central 
Park, while many other parks are being planned 
and laid out beyond where the town has as yet 
been built up. There are large numbers of hand- 
some social clubs, such as the Knickerbocker, 
Union, and University, and many others of a 
politico-social character, — the most noted of them, 
alike for its architecture, political influence, and 
its important past history, being the Union 
League Club. 

There are many public buildings which are 
extremely interesting as showing the growth of a 
proper civic spirit, and of a desire for a life with 
higher possibilities than money-making. There 
has been an enormous increase in the number of 
hospitals, many of them admirably equipped and 
managed; and the numerous Newsboys' Lodging 
Houses, Night Schools, Working-Girls' Clubs and 
the like, bear witness to the fact that many New 
Yorkers who have at their disposal time or money 
17 



258 New York 

are alive to their responsibilities, and are actively 
striving to help their less fortunate fellows to help 
themselves. The Cooper Union building, a gift 
to the city for the use of all its citizens, in the 
widest sense, keeps alive the memory of old Peter 
Cooper, a man whose broad generosity and simple 
kindliness of character, while not rendering him 
fit for the public life into which he at times sought 
entrance, yet inspired in New Yorkers of every 
class a genuine regard such as they felt for no 
other philanthropist. Indeed, uncharitableness and 
lack of generosity have never been New York 
failings; the citizens are keenly sensible to any 
real, tangible distress or need. A blizzard in 
Dakota, an earthquake in South Carolina, a flood 
in Pennsylvania, — after any such catastrophe 
hundreds of thousands of dollars are raised in New 
York at a day's notice, for the relief of the suf- 
ferers; while, on the other hand, it is a difficult 
matter to raise money for a monument or a work 
of art. 

It is necessary both to appeal to the practical 
business sense of the citizens and to stir the real 
earnestness and love of country which lie under- 
neath the somewhat coarse-grained and not always 
attractive surface of the community, in order to 
make it show its real strength. Thus, there is no 
doubt that in case of any important foreign war 
or domestic disturbance New York would back 



Recent History 259 

up the general government with men and money 
to a practically unlimited extent. For all its 
motley population, there is a most wholesome 
underlying spirit of patriotism in the city, if it can 
only be roused. Few will question this who saw 
the great processions on land and water, and the 
other ceremonies attendant upon the celebration 
of the one hundredth anniversary of the adoption 
of the Federal Constitution. The vast crowds 
which thronged the streets were good-humored 
and orderly to a degree, and were evidently in- 
terested in much more than the mere spectacular 
part of the celebration. They showed by every 
action their feeling that it was indeed peculiarly 
their celebration ; for it commemorated the hun- 
dred years' duration of a government which, with 
many shortcomings, had nevertheless secured 
order and enforced law, and yet was emphatically 
a government of the people, giving to the working- 
man a chance which he has never had elsewhere. 
In all the poorer quarters of the city, where the 
population was overwhelmingly of foreign birth 
or origin, the national flag, the stars and stripes, 
hung from every window, and the picture of 
Washington was displayed wherever there was 
room. Flag and portrait alike were tokens that 
those who had come to our shores already felt 
due reverence and love for the grand memory 
of the man who, more than any other, laid the 



26o New York 

foiindation of our government; and that they 
already challenged as their own American nation- 
ality and American life, glorying in the Nation's 
past and confident in its future. 

In science and art, in musical and literary de- 
velopment, much remains to be wished for; yet 
something has already been done. The building 
of the MetropoHtan Museum of Art, of the Ameri- 
can Museum of Natural History, of the Metropoli- 
tan Opera House, the gradual change of Columbia 
College into a University, — all show a develop- 
ment which tends to make the city more and more 
attractive to people of culture ; and the growth of 
literary and dramatic clubs, such as the Century 
and the Players, is scarcely less significant. The 
illustrated monthly magazines — the Century, 
Scribner's, and Harper's — occupy an entirely 
original position of a very high order in periodical 
literature. The greatest piece of literary work 
which has been done in America, or indeed any- 
where, of recent years, was done by a citizen of 
New York, — not a professed man of letters, but a 
great General, an ex-President of the United 
States, writing his memoirs on his death -bed, to 
save his family from want. General Grant's book 
has had an extraordinary sale among the people 
at large, though even yet hardly appreciated at its 
proper worth by the critics ; and it is scarcely too 
high praise to say that, both because of the 



Recent History 261 

intrinsic worth of the matter, and because of its 
strength and simplicity as a piece of literary work, 
it almost deserves to rank with the speeches and 
writings of Abraham Lincoln. 

The fact that General Grant toward the end of 
his life made New York his abode, — as General 
Sherman has since done, — illustrates what is 
now a well-marked tendency of prominent men 
throughout the country to come to this city to 
live. There is no such leaning toward centraliza- 
tion, socially or politically, in the United States 
as in most European countries, and no one of our 
cities will ever assume toward the others a position 
similar to that held in their own countries by Lon- 
don, Paris, Vienna, or Berlin. There are in the 
United States ten or a dozen cities each of which 
stands as the social and commercial, though rarely 
as the political, capital of a district as large as an 
average European kingdom. No one of them 
occupies a merely provincial position as compared 
with any other; while the political capital of the 
country, the beautiful city of Washington, stands 
apart with a most attractive and unique life of its 
own. There is thus no chance for New York to 
take an unquestioned leadership in all respects. 
Nevertheless, its life is so intense and so varied, 
and so full of manifold possibilities, that it has a 
special and peculiar fascination for ambitious and 
high-spirited men of every kind, whether they wish 



262 New York 

to enjoy the fruits of past toil, or whether they ;| 

have yet their fortiines to make, and feel confident ,< 

that they can swim in troubled waters, — for weak- •{ 

lings have small chance of forging to the front 
against the turbulent tide of our city life. The 
truth is that every man worth his salt has open to 

him in New York a career of boundless usefulness 

i 

and interest. \ 

As for the upper social world, the fashionable ''.^ 

world, it is much as it was when portrayed in the j 

' 'Potiphar Papers," save that modern society has 
shifted the shrine at which it pays comical but j 

sincere homage from Paris to London. Perhaps 
it is rather better, for it is less provincial and a 
trifle more American. But a would-be upper class 
based mainly on wealth, in which it is the excep- 
tion and not the rule for a man to be of any real 
accoimt in the national life, whether as a poli- 
tician, a literary man, or otherwise, is of necessity 
radically defective and of little moment. 

Grim dangers confront us in the future, yet there 
is more ground to believe that we shall succeed 
than that we shall fail in overcoming them. Tak- 
ing into account the enormous mass of immigrants, 
utterly unused to self-government of any kind, 
who have been thrust into our midst, and are even 
yet not assimilated, the wonder is not that uni- 
versal suffrage has worked so badly, but that it has 
worked so well. We are better, not worse off, 



f 



Recent History 263 

than we were a generation ago. There is much 
gross civic corruption and commercial and social 
selfishness and immorality, upon which we are in 
honor bound to wage active and relentless war. 
But honesty and moral cleanliness are the rule; 
and under the laws order is well preserved, and all 
men are kept secure in the possession of life, lib- 
erty, and property. The sons and grandsons of the 
immigrants of fifty years back have as a whole 
become good Americans, and have prospered 
wonderfully, both as regards their moral and ma- 
terial well-being. There is no reason to suppose 
that the condition of the working classes as a whole 
has grown worse, though there are enormous bod- 
ies of them whose condition is certainly very bad. 
There are grave social dangers and evils to meet, 
but there are plenty of earnest men and women 
who devote their minds and energies to meeting 
them. With many very serious shortcomings and 
defects, the average New Yorker yet possesses 
courage, energy, business capacity, much gener- 
osity of a practical sort, and shrewd, humorous 
common sense. The greedy tyranny of the un- 
scrupulous rich and the anarchic violence of the 
vicious and ignorant poor are ever threatening 
dangers; but though there is every reason why 
we should realize the gravity of the perils ahead 
of us, there is none why we should not face them 
with confident and resolute hope, if only each of 



264 



New York 



us, according to the measure of his capacity, will 
with manly honesty and good faith do his full 
share of the all-important duties incident to 
American citizenship. 



POSTSCRIPT. 

DURING the five years that have passed since 
I wrote this book, there has occurred in 
New York a political revolution so note- 
worthy that it may be well briefly to tell of its 
principal features. It was barely second in im- 
portance to the revolution which resulted in the 
overthrow of the Tweed ring. 

Ever since the days of Tweed, Tammany Hall 
has, w4th the exception of a few brief periods, been 
the controlling force in the New York City De- 
mocracy, and has generally held the reins of 
government in the city itself. There have been 
honorable men in Tammany, and there have been 
occasions on which Tammany has acted well and 
has deserved well of the country; nevertheless, 
speaking broadly, it may be said that Tammany 
has always stood for what was worst in our po- 
litical life, and especially in our municipal politics. 
The Tammany Hall organization is a machine of 
ideal perfection for its own purposes. It has as 
leaders a number of men of great ability in certain 
special directions. The rank and file of its mem- 
bers are recruited from the most ignorant portion 
of the city's population, coming from among the 
voters who can usually be voted in a mass by 

265 



\ 



266 New York 

those who have influence over them. This in- 
fluence is sometimes obtained by appeals to their 
prejudices and by the lowest art of the demagogue ; 
sometimes it is obtained by downright corruption, 
sometimes it is obtained through the influence the 
local Tammany organizations exert on the social 
life of their neighborhoods. The District leaders 
are able in a hundred ways to benefit their follow- 
ers. They try to get them work when they are 
idle; they provide amusement for them in the 
shape of picnics and steamboat excursions; and, 
in exceptional cases, they care for them when 
suffering from want or sickness; and they are 
always ready to help them when they have fallen 
into trouble with the representatives of the law. 
They thus get a very strong influence over a large 
class, the members of which are ordinarily fairly 
decent men, who work with reasonable industry 
at their trades, but who never get far ahead, who 
at times fall into want, and who sometimes have 
kinsfolk of semi-criminal type. These men are 
apt to regard the saloon as their club-house ; often, 
indeed, the saloons are the headquarters of the 
District political organizations, and become in a 
double sense the true social centers of neighbor- 
hood life. 

To the mass of citizens of this kind the local 
political leaders are not merely individuals of 
whose public actions they approve or disapprove 






1 



Postscript 267 

as mere disinterested outside critics. On the con- 
trary, these leaders are men with whose welfare 
their own is often intimately bound; men who 
can, and do, render them important services, both 
proper and improper, on occasions when they are 
in need. It is impossible ever to understand the 
power of the political machines in New York City 
life until the importance of their §^^^^1 side is fully 
grasped. Their social functions, the part they 
play in the everyday life of the people, constitute, 
the chief reason for their overwhelming predomi- 
nance in the political field. 

The saloons form on the whole the most potent 
factor in the political life of those Districts where 
the population is the most congested, where the 
people are poorest and most ignorant, and where 
the evils of machine domination are most acutely 
felt. In consequence, the saloon-keeper is, nine 
times out of ten, a more or less influential poli- 
tician. In Tammany Hall a very large proportion 
of the leaders are, or have been, saloon-keepers. 
The saloon-keeper is usually a comparatively rich 
man, at least in the eyes of most of the people with 
whom he is thrown in contact. He is brought into 
intimate connection with a large number of voters, 
and he has rooms which they find offer the best 
accommodations for club purposes. He is thus 
able to get much influence which he can either 
use as a politician himself, or can wield in the 



268 New York 

interest of other politicians. On the other hand, 
his is a business which always tempts to law- 
breaking. New York City receives its law from 
New York State. Country Districts are always 
favorable to temperance legislation. New York 
contains a very large element which objects to any 
regulation of the sale of liquor, and which con- | 

tinually wishes to drink at hours when drinking is 
prohibited by law. New York State, for instance, 
has always insisted that the saloons everywhere, 
including those in New York City, should be 
closed on Sundays; but in New York City there 
has been always a very large nimiber of people 
who wanted the saloons open, and there has gen- 
erally been entire readiness on the part of the city 
officials that the saloons should stay open in 
defiance of the law, so long as they paid for the 
privilege, and did not antagonize the authorities 
in some question of moment. In consequence, 
the saloon-keeper, who did his most thriving trade 
on Sunday, stood in urgent need of the protection 
which could be granted by the local politician. 
Accordingly, every saloon-keeper could, on the 
one hand, be most useful to the local political 
leaders, and, on the other hand, needed the ser- 
vices of the local political leaders. The conse- 
quence was a very close connection between the 
saloon-keeper and the politician. A further conse- 
quence was that the saloons became one of the 



Postscript 269 

chief elements in bringing about the gross poHtical 

corruption of New York. 

The politics, both of New York City and of 
New York State, continually suffer kaleidoscope 
changes. Told in detail, their political history is 
but the unraveling of a tangle of faction fights 
and intrigues. If, however, we disregard the 
names of these factions, we can readily get a clear 
glimpse of the forces at work in New York. 
Within the Democratic party, Tammany has 
ordinarily dominated, but the anti-Tammany 
Democrats are continually joining into an or- 
ganization, or organizations, which are always of 
ephemeral existence, but which sometimes accom- 
plish a great deal during their short lease of life. 
The Republicans include normally rather over 
two-fifths of the voters of the city. There is 
among them a corrupt element which is often 
delighted to make a deal with Tammany, accept- 
ing a few offices in consideration of securing 
Tammany's control over the remainder. 

Of late years, a strong feeling has grown among 
honest and self-respecting men that in municipal 
matters there should not be a division along the 
lines of cleavage between the National parties. 
For years the great effort of New York municipal 
reformers has been to combine good citizens 
against Tammany. The Republican machine has 
sometimes helped, and sometimes hindered these 



270 New York 

efforts, and the same has been true of the various 
Democratic anti-Tammany organizations. At the 
elections Tammany always runs a ticket. Some 
times it receives the solid support of the entire 
Democracy. More rarely it makes a virtue of 
necessity and indorses a decent ticket nominated 
by other Democrats. Sometimes it fights for its 'i 

own hand against both an anti-Tammany Demo- 
cratic ticket and a Republican ticket. Sometimes 
its nominee for mayor is opposed by an anti-Tam- 
many man, whether Republican or Democrat, 
supported by a coalition of all the anti-Tammany 
forces. The elements opposed to Tamm.any are 
so incongruous, and there is so much jealousy 
among them, that it is very difficult to bring them 
into any permanent combination. Still, when- 
ever an anti-Tammany Democrat has been elected 
to office, it has always been through the 'powerful 
element of Republican voters, whether the help 
was given through the Republican machine or 
against its wishes. In return, a certain proportion 
of the anti-Tammany Democratic vote has always 
been willing to support a Republican candidate 
against Tammany. 

From the defeat of Tweed up to 1888, Tam- 
many, though dominant in New York City poli- 
tics, always held a divided sway. In 1888, 
however, it obtained absolute power. A Tam- 
many mayor was elected by an enormous plurality, 



Postscript 271 

the Republican candidate standing second, and 
the anti-Tammany Democrat third. The gov- 
ernorship and the State legislature were both in 
the hands of Tammany's most faithful Democratic 
allies. The chief power in the city government is 
lodged in the hands of the mayor ; and when he is 
backed by the governor and legislature his powers 
are almost dictatorial. In 1890, the Republicans 
supported the anti-Tammany nominee for mayor. 
This was the year of the Democratic tidal-wave, 
and the Tammany candidate won by a large 
majority. In 1892, the anti-Tammany Demo- 
crats surrendered to Tammany and supported its 
nominee, who beat the Republican candidate with 
the greatest ease. During all these years corrup- 
tion grew apace in the city government. The 
Tammany officials had put their foes under their 
feet, and no longer feared resistance or criticism. 
They did not believe it would be possible to over- 
turn them. They did whatever was right in their 
own eyes; and what was right in their eyes was 
generally very wrong indeed in the eyes of men 
who believed in the elementary principles of hon- 
esty. When, with the Presidential election of 1892, 
the Republican party went out of power in city, 
State, and nation alike, while Tammany was left 
supreme and unopposed in the city and State 
Democracy, the Tammany leaders threw off the last 
bonds of restraint, and acted with contemptuous 



272 New York 

defiance of decent public opinion. Corruption 
and blackmail grew apace, and the dominant 
note in the Tammany organization was a cynical 
contempt of decent public opinion. This brought 
about its own punishment. The abuses in many 
of the departments, notably in the police force and 
among the city magistrates, became so gross as to 
shock even men of callous conscience. The public 
indignation was latent, but it existed, ready to 
take effective shape if only the right man arose to 
direct its manifestation. 

The man was found in the person of a Presby- 
terian clergyman, the Rev. Charles W. Parkhurst. 
Single-handed, he began a crusade against the 
gross political corruption of the city government. 
He made his fight entirely outside of political lines, 
or perhaps it would be more fair to say that he 
made it without regard to national politics, at- 
tacking the city officials simply as malefactors, and 
urging a union of all decent men against them. 
At first he was rewarded merely by ridicule and 
abuse; but he never flinched for a moment, and 
decent sentiment began to crystallize in his sup- 
port. Moreover, the blimders of the Democratic 
party in State and national affairs helped the 
reformers, precisely as the shortcomings of the 
Republicans had helped Tammany in 1890 and 
1892. In 1893, the State Democracy, under the 
lead of Senator Hill, Tammany's stanch ally, 



1^ 

ll 



Postscript 273 

nominated for judge a man who had been dis- 
agreeably implicated in election frauds. Even 
men of low political morality dislike a tainted 
judiciary, and this nomination shocked many men 
who never before had bolted the Dem^ocratic 
ticket. The Bar of the State, and especially the 
Bar of the city, was nearly unanimous in denun- 
ciation of the nomination. Tammany and its 
allies put forth every effort to overcome this hos- 
tile sentiment. Not since the days of Seymour's 
candidacy for President was the cheating so open 
and scandalous in New York City. In other 
places, notably at Coney Island, it was quite as 
flagrant. Nevertheless, the obnoxious candidate 
was defeated by one hundred thousand votes, and 
a Republican legislature was elected. 

The result of the election was like an electric 
shock to the whole reform movement. But a year 
before it had seemed hopeless to awaken the con- 
vScience of decent citizens, and still more hopeless 
to expect to punish a wrong-doer. Now all was 
changed. The men most conspicuous in the 
electoral frauds were vigorously prosecuted, and 
some forty of them were sent to prison for longer 
or shorter periods. A Legislative Committee 
started to investigate the condition of municipal 
affairs in New York; and before this committee 
it was shown that Dr. Parkhurst's accusations 

were true, and that the system of blackmailing 
18 



274 New York 

and corruption by the Tammany Hall officials 
and notably by the Police Department, was as 
appalling as he had insisted. In the fall of 1894, 
the decent men of the city joined together, and 
nominated a union ticket, with, at its head, as 
candidate for mayor, William A. Strong, a Repub- 
lican. Helped by the general Republican tidal- 
wave, which in the State secured the defeat of 
Senator Hill for governor by one hundred and fifty 
thousand plurality. Strong and the rest of the 
ticket were elected in New York City, the Tam- 
many ticket being defeated by a sweeping ma- 
jority. 

There followed a complete revolution in the 
municipal government. The victory had been 
won, not on party lines, but as a fight for decent 
government, and for the non-partisan adminis- 
tration of municipal affairs. Democrat and Re- 
publican, Protestant and Catholic, Jew and Gen- 
tile, the man born of native American stock and 
the man whose parents came from Ireland or 
Germany, all had joined in achieving the victory. 
The change in the city departments was radical. 
It was not so much a change in policy as a change 
of administration. It is rather humiliating for a 
New Yorker to have to confess that this revo- 
lutionary change consisted simply in applying 
the standard of common decency and common 
honesty to our public affairs. Under the old 



^' 



I 



Postscript 275 

administration of the departments corruption had 
been so rife that it may almost be said to have 
been the rule. With the new dispensation there 
came an era of strict honesty. 

The improvement has been so great that it may 
fairly be called wonderful. Whether or not it will 
be permanent is difficult to foretell. I think that 
those are oversanguine who believe that there will 
be no falling back. On the other hand, I do not 
believe that there will be any permanent or com- 
plete return to the old conditions, and I do not feel 
that good citizens should grow downhearted over 
a momentary check or reaction. Tammany Hall 
may come back, but it will be a chastened Tam- 
many Hall. The wrong-doing will not be as 
flagrant as formerly, and it will be easier to arouse 
a revolt against the wrong-doers. 

That there will be some reaction is only to be 
expected; and it may be questioned whether, in 
a city with as composite a population as New 
York, where the bulk of the voters have for so 
many years been accustomed to the worst kind 
of machine rule, it will be possible very long to 
maintain the standard quite as high as it is at 
present. It is easier to rally the varying elements 
when in opposition, than to get them to support 
an administration which is actually engaged in 
the solution of important problems. Nevertheless, 
be the immediate outcome what it may, great and 



276 New York 

lasting good has been done ; for New York has been 
shown that it is possible to obtain a decent and 
clean administration of municipal affairs, free from 
the curse of spoils politics, and above all the city 
at last knows, by practical experience, the im- 
mense moral, no less than material, gain which 
arises from giving the control of civic matters to 
men who are fearless and disinterested, and who 
combine the virtues of honesty and common sense. 



INDEX 



Acadia, 3 

Adventure, an age of, i, 2 

Advisory Council, Minuit's, 
17; Stuyvesant's, 36 

Africa, early trade with, 90 

Albany, Hudson's arrival 
near site of, 8; establish- 
ment of post near site, 11; 
refuses allegiance to Leis- 
ler's rule, 83; trade with, 
90 

Aldermen, first, 50; office 
abolished, 55; elected by 
freeholders, 67; disorderly 
election for, 103; "rights" 
of, 177; how elected after 
Revolution, 178; a local 
legislature, 178 

Algonquins, massacre of, 27; 
reasons for their defeats, 29 

Allotment Commission, the, 
248 

America, Spanish possessions 
in, 2, 3; uncertain owner- 
ship in early times, 3 

American Fur Company, 218 

American Museum of Natu- 
ral History, 260 

Amusements, of early set- 
tlers, 39, 115; at beginning 
of nineteenth century, 203, 
204 

Anarchy, threatened, 30 

Andros, Sir Edmund, ap- 
pointed governor, 58; re- 
instates English form of 
government, 58; makes 
EngUsh the official lan- 



guage, 59; character of his 
rule, 60; grants monopoly 
of bolting and exporting 
flour, 60; abolishes Indian 
slavery, 61; hostility to 
Puritans, 61; summoned 
to England, 62; restored 
to favor, 62; reappointed, 
69; imprisonment of, 70; 
consequences of fall of, 73 
Annexed District, the, 245 
Anti-Monopolist party, 236 
Architectxire, 240, 257 
Aristocratic element, 17, 49, 

114 and note 
Aristocratic part}', in 1689, 
74; supported by Fletcher, 
97, 98; trial of leaders for 
treason, 103 
Armorial bearings, 115 
Art, encouragement of, 240 
Assembly, the, constitution 
of, 66; early acts of, 66; 
property qualification for 
election to, 87; struggles 
in, 88, 89; Fletcher's_ in- 
terference with elections 
for, 96, 97; characteristics 
of, 98; quarrels with Flet- 
cher, 99; parsimony as 
regards defenses, 99, 128, 
129; condemns Roman 
Catholic priests to death, 
105; issues paper money, 
107; minority of popular 
party in, 142; set aside, 
and replaced by Provincial 
Congress, 156 



277 



278 



Index 



Astor, John Jacob, 217, 219 

Astor Library, 218 

Astor Place Riots, 233, 234 

Asykims, 206 

Australia, owes practical in- 
dependence to United 
States, 131 

Backwoodsman, evolution of 

the, 24 
Bakery, the first, 18 
Ballston Springs, 204 
Bankruptcy of States, 180 
Banks, chartering of , 201 
Baptists, refvige for, 26; per- 
secuted by Stuyvesant, 42 ; 
strength before the Revo- 
lution and at present day, 
109 
Battery Park, 204 
Bayard, Col. Nicholas, leader 
of aristocratic party in 
1689, 74; colonel of train- 
bands, 75; chased from 
the city, 82 
Bayard House, feast at, 185 
Beekman, David, 128, note 
Beekman, William, 128, note 
Bellomont, Earl of, succeeds 
Gov. Fletcher, 99; charac- 
ter, 99, 100; favors Leis- 
lerians and popular party, 
100 ; honors bodies of Leis- 
lerand Milbome, 100; con- 
nection with Capt. Kidd, 
10 1 ; land policy of, 102; 
death, 103 
Berrian, John, 156, note 
Bigotry, 70 
Billeting Act, opposition to, 

.142, 143 
Binckes, Adm . , takes the city, 

54 
Blackball Line of packets, 221 
Block, Adrian, loses vessel by 

fire, 8; builds first ship in 

American waters, 9 



Blockade of city, 209 
Bogardus, Dominie, 20, 27 
Bohemian inimigration, 256 
Bondservants, 118, 119 
Boston, Mass., mail between 
New York and, 54; com- 
pared with New York in 
1 7 10, 108; sentiment and 
action about Tea Act, 146; 
New York refuses aid to 
British garrison at, 154 
Boston Massacre, not first 
bloodshed in Revolution, 

T. '45. 

Bouenes, 18 

Bowling Green, Stamp Act 

riots on, 140 
Brazil, despoiled by the West 

India Company, 13 
Bread riots, 234 
Breda, Peace of, 51 
Brewery, the first, 18 
Bribery, early, 100; Gov. 

Cornbury influenced by, 

104; in street railway 

cases, 239 

British fleet. New York the 
base of operations of, 161; 
action on the Hudson, 165 

British occupation, 166, 272 

British troops. New York the 
base of operations of, 161; 
make New York their 
headquarters, 166; treat- 
ment of captured city, 167 

Brockholls, Anthony, Lt.- 
Gov., in charge of colony, 
62; inefficiency, 62 

Brooldyn, L. I., Revolution- 
ary forces at, 161 

Brown, Charles Brockden, 
208 

Bryant, William CuUen, 240 

Burgomasters, abolition of, 
49; office restored, 55 

Burr, Aaron, in retreat at 
Kip's Bay, 164; a resident 






Index 



279 



of New York, 181; power 
in city democracy, 189; 
elected senator, 189; dis- 
liked by Hamilton, 189; 
defeat in 1799, 189; can- 
didate for Vice- Presidency, 
191; tactics in election of 
1800, 191; elected Vice- 
President, 192; tie vote in 
Electoral College, 193; an- 
tagonism of Jefferson to, 
197; driven out of Demo- 
cratic party, 198; candi- 
date for governorship, 198; 
kills Hamilton in duel, 199; 
ostracized, 199; bill to in- 
troduce water into the 
city, 201 

Canada, futile expedition 
against, 83, 84; effect of 
English conquest of, on 
American history, 126, 132 

Canal Street, site of, 14; 
origin of name, 37 

Capital, New York the Fed- 
eral, 185 

Catskill Mountains, 8 

Centennial celebration of 
adoption of Federal Con- 
stitution, 259 

Central Park, 257 

Century Club, 260 

"Century Magazine, "the, 260 

Charities, 206, 257 

Charles II., death of, 68 

Charter of 1857, 239 

Charter of Liberties and Priv- 
ileges, 66 

Chatham, Earl of, possibili- 
ties in his statesmanship, 

137 
China trade, 175 
Cholera, plague of 1832, 232 
Christiansen, Hendrik, head 

of Dutch posts, 9; death 

of, 10 



Christmas, observance of, 116 
Church, the first, 19, 38 
Churches, turned into pris- 
ons, 167, 168; repair of, 

173 

Church of England, the State 

church, 87, II I ; the fash- 
ionable organization, 112; 
controls King's College, 
112; enmity to, 153; see 
also Episcopalian 

Citizenship, early admission 
of foreigners to, 47, 66 

City Council, dispersed by 
i Leisler's troops, 78, 82 

City Hall, headquarters of 
Lt.-Gov. Ingoldsby, 86; 
used as prison, 170 

Civil rights, guaranteed by 
Gov. Nicolls, 47 

Civil War, early threats of, 
180; New York during the, 

245 
Class divisions, 202 

Class government, 87 

Clergy, action of Roman 

Catholic, during draft riots, 

249 
Clergyman, the first regular, 

20 
Clinton, De Witt, first scholar 
of Columbia College, 173; 
rise of, 189; member of 
Council of Appointment, 
193 ; principles of appoint- 
ment to office, 196; mayor, 
197; fights a duel, 199; 
constructs Erie Canal, 215; 
introduces spoils system, 

215 
Clinton, Gen. George, opposes 

evacuation of New York, 
162; character, 163, 182; 
opposes union of States, 
182; election frauds in in- 
terest of, 187; manage- 
ment of patronage, 188, 



28o 



Index 



196; elected governor, 193, 
elected Vice-President, 198 

Clinton family, leaders of 
Democracy, 191; distrust 
of Burr, 191; apportion- 
ment of patronage among, 
197; opposition to Burr, 
197 

Clipper ships, 220 

Clubs, 52, 257 

Coast trade, 90 

Cod-fisheries, 53 

Coffee-houses, 118 

Col den, Gov. Cadwallader, 
attempts to enforce Stamp 
Act, 139; hung in effigy, 
140; burned in efligy, 140; 
yields custody of stamps to 
municipal authorities, 141 

Colonial families, descent of 
prominent, 87, note 

Colonialism, spirit of, 241 

Colonial system, vice of, 15, 
126 

Colonies, Congress of, 83; 
English restrictions on 
trade of, 98; Tory and 
neutral element in, 150 

Colonists, first, 13; love of 
liberty among English, 
127; home tie of, a draw- 
back, 133; feeling of, on 
their reputed inferiority, 

152 

Colonization, European the- 
ory of, 127; change in that 
theory, 131 

Columbia College {see also 
King's College) , name of 
King's College changed to, 
173; development into a 
university, 260 

Columbia Gardens, 204 

Colve, Capt. Anthony, re- 
ceives surrender of city, 55 ; 
character, 56; troubles 
with Long Island Puritans, 



56 ; establishes military 
law, 57; imposes heavy 
taxes, 57; succeeded by 
Sir Edmund Andros, 58 
Commerce, influence of, 9; 
blow to, by war between 
Holland and England, 54; 
early, 90; restrictions on, 
98; increase of, 175, 245 
Commercial honor, low tone 

of, 180 
Committee of Fifty-one, 147, 

148 
Committee of Mechanics, 147 
Committee of Safety, 82 
Committee of Sixty, 148 
Committee of Vigilance, 147 
Common, the, 116; Stamp 

Act rioting on, 140 
Common Council, disloyalty 

of, 246 
Connecticut, joins expedition 

against Canada, 83 
Connecticut River, Van Twill- 

er's fort on, 21 
Connecticut Valley, English 

take possession of, 21, 26 
Constables, election of, 178 
Constitution of New York, 
abolishes religious disabili- 
ties, 174; character of 
framers, 176; adoption of 
a new, 210, 213 
Constitution of United States, 
adoption of, 180; position 
of Hamilton in regard to, 
183; procession in honor 
of, 184, 185; centennial 
celebration of adoption of, 

259 
Continental Army, motley 

character of, 156 
Continental Congress, first 

idea of holding, 147; the 

first and second, 149 
Convicts, early importations 

of, 118, 119 



Index 



281 



Cooper, James Fenimore, 240 

Cooper, Peter, 25S 

Cooper Union, 258 

Combury, Lord Edward H., 
appointed governor, 104; 
character, 105; misappro- 
priates public funds, 105; 
removal of, 105. 

Corruption, political, 251, 263 

Cosby, Gov. William, charac- 
ter, 123; libeled by Zenger, 
124 

Costume, of early Dutch set- 
tlers, 39; in colonial period, 
95; at beginning of nine- 
teenth century, 203 

Council of Appointment, 175, 
176; power of, 196; aboli- 
tion of, 213 

Council of Twelve, Kieft's, 29 

Court house, frauds in con- 
struction of, 233 

Court party, known as Tories, 
125; Episcopalians and 
Dutch in, 136; great fam- 
ilies the leaders in, 136; 
revival of, 142 

Criminal classes, large pro- 
portion of, among early 
settlers, 35 

Croton aqueduct, 240 

Crow's Nest, 8 

Curtis, George W., author of 
"Potiphar Papers," 241 

Customs duties, refusal to 
pay, 62 

Declaration of Independence, 
supported by best citizens. 

Declaration of Rights by 

Stamp Act Congress, 138 
Defenses, inferiority of, 156, 

^ 157 

De Lancey, James, appointed 
chief-justice, 124; conduct 
in trial of Zenger, 124 



De Lancey family, armorial 
bearings of, 115; leaders of 
court party, 125, 136, 142 

Delaware River, Swedish 
possessions on, 3; Dutch 
colony on, 21; Swedish 
colony defeated by Stuy- 
vesant, 40; extinction of 
Swedish Lutheran Church, 
on, III 

Demagogism, 179 

Democracy, tendencies of 
Dutch settlers toward, 41; 
early limitations of, 88; 
rise against the oligarchy, 
135; early opinions about, 
176; absolute sway of, 200 

Democratic party, rise of 
name, 186; control State 
and city, 193; merciless 
use of patronage, 197; sup- 
port the French, 200; split 
in, 236; controlled by 
Tammany Hall, 237; power 
of, 245; corruption in, 252 

De Peyster family, leaders in 
the court party, 136 

Detroit, wrested from the 
French, 5 

De Vries, patroon, 25, 27 

Disorders, after fall of An- 
dros, 73; after Bellomont's 
death, 103 

Doctors' Mob, the, 174 

Dominie, first house for the, 

Dongan, Thomas, appointed 
governor, 64; policy and 
character, 64, 68; recalled, 
69 

Draft riots, 248, 250 

Drake, Rodman, 240 

Drinking habits, early colo- 
nial, 115 

Duane, James, first mayor 
after Revolution, 178 

Duels, 190 



282 



Index 



Dutch, settlements in Ameri- 
ica, 3, 4; defeated by Ply- 
mouth colonists, 21 ; char- 
acteristics of, 23, 24; mas- 
sacre by Indians, 28; reli- 
gious liberty under English 
rule, 47, 50; recapture of 
city by, 54 

Dutch Church, rights guaran- 
teed to, 87 ; extinction pre- 
vented, III 

Dutch rule, transition to Eng- 
lish, 46; restoration of, 54; 
end of, 57. 

East Indies, early trade with, 
90 

East River bridge, 257 

Education, in early colonial 
times, 116; foundation of 
free-school system, 206 

Election riots, 234 

Elections, intimidation at, 
97; disorderly aldermanic, 
103; frauds at, 252 

Electoral College, tie- vote for 
Jefferson and Burr, 193 

Electric telegraph, develop- 
ment of, 216 

Eleventh New York Volun- 
teers, 249 

Embargo, the, 201 

England, the cradle of sea- 
men, I ; immigration from, 
26, 256; seizes New Am- 
sterdam, 43, 45; war with 
Holland, 51, 54; early 
trade with, 90; treatment 
of colonies compared with 
other nations, 126; how 
colonies might have been 
preserved, 132, 133 

English, settlements inAmer- 
ica, 3; early settlers, 14, 
34; Minuit's relations with, 
18; Van Twiller's relations 
with, 20; immigration of, 



26, 256; early settlers be- 
long to aristocratic party, 
48; regain possession of 
New York, 57; see also 
British 

English law, supremacy of, in 
New York, 5 

English rule, transition from 
Dutch to, 46; overthrown 
by the Dutch, 54, 55; re- 
stored, 57 

English-speaking race, mar- 
velous spread of, 127 

Episcopalian Church, the 
fashionable organization, 
112; growth of, 256; see 
also Church of England 

Episcopalian churches, 

closed for fear of mobs, 
1 54 ; reopened during Brit- 
ish occupation, 168 

Episcopalians, detestation of 
Leisler, 80 ; persecutions of 
Presbyterians by, no, 112 

Equality, necessity of, in the 
Federal Union, 133 

Equal Rights Men, 236 

Erie Canal, effect on city, 215 

Evacuation, by Washington's 
troops, 162; by British 
troops, 171 

Evertsen, Adm. Cornells, 
takes the city, 54; makes 
Colve director of the pro- 
vince, 55 

Exchange, foundation of the, 

53 
Execution Dock, Captam 

Kidd hung at, 102 

Explorers, an age of, i , 2 

Farming, advance in, 25 
"Federahst," the, 183, 240 
Federalist party. New York 
the seat of power of, 181, 
182; struggle with Anti- 
Federalists, 186; first big 



Index 



383 



break in , 188; successes of, 
189; fall of, 192; merciless 
use of patronage, 197 ; sup- 
port the British, 200 

Federal Union, equality a 
necessity in, 133, 134 

Feudal privileges, 16, 25 

Fifth Avenue, 243 

Fires, incendiary, in 1741, 
121; during British occu- 
pation, 168; large losses 
by, 234 

Fire-water, introduction 
among Indians, 7 

Fisheries, early, 53, 67, 90 

Fitch, John, pioneer in steam 
navigation, 209 

Fletcher, Benjamin, gov- 
ernor, 96; connection with 
pirates, 96; character, 97; 
quarrels with New Eng- 
land and with Assembly, 
99; recalled, 99 

Florida, 3 

Flour, monopoly of bolting 
and exporting, 60 

Fort, early, 14 

Fort Orange, 47 

France, enmity to, 71, 89; 
wars with, 90 

Franchise, different kinds of, 

Freeholders, privileges of, 
118, 175, 178 

French, settlements in Amer- 
ica, 3; characteristics of 
pioneers, 23 

French wars, retarded Amer- 
ican Revolution, 132 

French war-ship, terrorizes 
city, 105 

Frontenac, Louis de B., cruel- 
ties in New York and New 
England, 83 

Frontiersman, evolution of, 

Fulton, Robert, introduces 



steam navigation, 209; 
builds steam frigate, 209 
Fur trade, 7, 9, 18, 131, 218 

Gage, Gen. Thomas, com- 
mander of garrison, 139; 
yields stamps to municipal 
authorities, 141 

Gallatin, Albert, abhorrence 
of partisan proscription, 
196 

Gallows, the, 37 

"Gazette," the, first news- 
paper, 123 

"General Armstrong," fight 
of the, 210 

George III., effect of his blun- 
ders, 137; address by 
Stamp Act Congress to, 
138; erection of monu- 
ment to, 142; monument 
destroyed, 142 

German Calvinists, in the 
eighteenth century, 109 

German Lutherans, in the 
eighteenth century, 109 

Germans, early settlers, 14, 
34; immigration of, 106, 
224, 228, 256; furnish 
large proportion of auxil- 
iaries to British troops, 
161, note 

Governor, restrictions on 
power of, 177 

Grant, Gen. U. S., Memoirs 
of, 260, 261 

Guinea Coast, trade with, 91 

Gustavus Adolphus, influ- 
ence of his death on Amer- 
ica's future, 4 

Haarlem Heights, American 

victory at, 164 
Hale, Nathan, capture and 

execution of, 169 
"Half Moon," the, reaches 



Hi 



284 



Index 



the Hudson, i ; returns to 
Holland, 8 

Hall, Oakey, mayoralty of, 
252 

Hall of Justice, 73 

Hamilton, Alexander, con- 
servative principles of , 137, 
attitude in the Revolution, 
151; in retreat at Kip's 
Bay, 164; leader of Fed- 
eralist party, 181; charac- 
ter, 186, 189; defender of 
Loyalists, 182; success in 
Federal movement, 183; 
procession in honor of, 184; 
heart of Federalist party, 
186; Secretary of Trea- 
sury, 187; Livingston's 
opinion of, 188; dislike of 
Burr, 189; maltreatment 
of, 191; killed by Biur, 
199 

"Harper's Magazine," 260 

"Harper's Weekly," expo- 
sures of Tweed, 253 

Hartford, Conn., mail be- 
tween New York and, 54 

Hebrew immigration, 256 

Hessians, employment as 
troops, and hatred of, 159 

Hickey, Thomas, hung for 
plot against Washington, 
160 

Holland, war with England, 

, 51. 54 . 

Horse-racmg under Gover- 
nor Lovelace, 53 

Hospitals, 206, 257 

Houses, of early settlers, 37, 
38; at beginning of nine- 
teenth century, 204; mod- 
em, 244 

Howe, Lord, attacks the city, 
161, 162; victories of , i65 

Hudson, Hendrik, discovers 
Hudson River, i, 6; re- 
turns to Holland, 8 



Hudson Bay Company, 16 
Hudson River, in hands of 
the Dutch, 3; early belief 
about. 6; scenery, 8; new 
settlements on, 25; opera- 
tions of British fleet on, 
161; steamboats on, 216 
Huguenots, early settlers, 14, 
34, 48, 49; religious liberty 
under English rule, 50; 
benefits conferred on, 66; 
element in population, 71, 



no 



Hungarian immigration, 256 
Hunter, Robert, appointed 
governor, 106 

Immigrants, a bad class of. 

Immigration , encouragement 
of, 25; increase of, 205, 
210, 215, 222 et seq.; 
change in character of, 256 

Import duties, reserved to 
Duke of York, 66 

Independence, but dimly 
seen at first, 136; the 
logical result of revolu- 
tionary measures, 156 

India, search for new route 
to, I, 6 

Indian Ocean, trade with 
ports of, 91; piracy on, 94 

Indians, fate of, 5 ; on shores 
of Hudson River, 6, 7; 
early strife with, 6; first 
taste of fire-water, 7 ; trade 
with, 10; sell Manhattan 
Island, 14; Minuit's rela- 
tions with, 16, 18; Van 
Twiller's relations with, 20; 
massacre Dutch colonists 
on Delaware River, 21; 
sale of weapons to, forbid- 
den, 24; war with, under 
Kieft's administration, 26, 
28; Stuyvesant's relations 



Index 



285 



with, 39; danger from, 46, 
47; treatment by Gover- 
nor NicoUs, 51; relations 
with Governor Lovelace, 
53; end of slavery of, 61; 
Dongan's relations with, 
68; private acquisitions of 
land from, 97 

Ingoldsby, Richard, lieuten- 
ant-governor, lands at New 
York, 86; skirmish with 
Leisler's troops, 86 

Inns, 25, 118 

Irish, prominent element of 
population, no; Protest- 
antism of early settlers, 
no; furnish large propor- 
tion of auxiliaries to Brit- 
ish troops, 161, note; im- 
migration, 224, 226; riots, 
250, 251; decrease of im- 
migration, 256 

Irving, Washington, 208, 240 

Italians, maritime enterprise 
of, 2; immigration, 256 

Jail, the, 118 

James II. (see also York, 
Duke of) , accession of, 68 ; 
change of policy, 68; op- 
position to, 70; tyranny 
of, 76; hatred of his gov- 
ernment, 76, 77; action in 
exile, 79 

Java, value compared with 
New Netherlands, 4,57 

Jay, John, conservative prin- 
ciples of, 137; member of 
Committee of Fifty-one, 
147; attitude in the Revo- 
lution, 151; leader in 
Provincial Congress, 155; 
leader of Federalist party, 
181, 186; character, 181, 
186; defender of Loyalists, 
182; joint author of the 
"FederaUst," 183; oppo- 



sition to, 187; appointed 
chief-justice, 187; treaty 
with England, 190; ap- 
pointments of , 195. 

Jealousy, class, 73; ill effects 
of, 129, 158; Washington's 
troubles from State, 171 

Jefferson, Thomas, tie-vote 
in Electoral College, 193; 
chosen President, 193; 
maxim as to patronage, 
195; antagonism to Burr, 
197 

Jeffersonian Republicans, rise 
of, 186 

Jews, religious community in 
eighteenth century, 109; 
prohibition of suffrage to, 
112 

Johnson family, leaders in 
court party, 136; rulers of 
Mohawk Valley, 136 

Judges, election of, 214 

Justices, first, 50 

Kidd, Captain, fitted out as 
pirate-hunter, loi; turns 
pirate, loi; hung, loi; 
buried treasure of, 102 

Kieft, William, succeeds Van 
Twiller, 22; character and 
government, 19; Indian 
wars, 26; chooses council, 
29; removed, 30 

King, Rufus, made senator, 
187 

King's College, under control 
of Church of England, 112; 
expulsion of president, 154, 
change of name, 173; see 
also Columbia College 

Kip's Bay, American forces 
routed at, 163, 164 

Knickerbocker Club, 257 

Know-Nothing party, 237 

Labor, early colonial, 118, 123 



286 



Index 



Labor party, of 1830, 235 

Labor riots, 234 

La Montagne, Johannes, 
councillor with Kieft, 24, 
27 

Language, English, the offi- 
cial, no; abandonment of 
Dutch, III, 211; French, 
211, and note; German, 
211, 224, 225 

Launderer, a pedagogical, 20 

Lawrence, Cornelius Van 
Wyck, elected mayor, 235 

Legislative council, the first, 

36 

Legislature, loyalty to George 
I n . , 150; control city gov- 
ernment, 178, 179 

Leisler, Jacob, leader of pop- 
ular party in 1689, 75; char- 
acter, 75, 80; quarrel with 
collector of the port, 76; 
overcomes lieutenant-gov- 
ernor and city council, 78; 
short-sighted policy of, 80, 
82; opposition to Episco- 
palians and Puritans, 81; 
general opposition to, 81; 
disobeys royal proclama- 
tion, 82; nominated as 
commander-in-chief, 82; 
assumes the title of lieu- 
tenant-governor, 82; rule 
not recognized by Albany, 
83 ; quarrel with New Eng- 
land allies, 84; treatment 
of Long Islanders, 84; de- 
serted by his supporters, 
85; refuses to recognize 
Lt.-Gov. Ingoldsby, 85; 
arrested and hung, 86 ; dis- 
interred and honored, 100 

Leislerian party, put down, 
104; influence of, 105 

Lewis Morgan, 191; elected 
governor, 198; defeat of, 
199 



Libel law, obsolete theory of, 
124 

Liberties and privileges, char- 
ter of , 66 ; granted by Don- 
.gan, 67 

Liberty, struggle for, 179 

Liberty pole, erection of, 143 ; 
riot over, 144, 145 

Libraries, the New York So- 
ciety, 174; the Astor, 218 

Literary societies, 207, 208 

Literature, early colonial, 
117; rise of, 208; the 
birthplace of American, 
240; growth of, 260 

Livingston, Edward, ap- 
pointed mayor and U. S. 
district attorney, 196 

Livingston, Robert R., feel- 
ings toward Hamilton, 188 

Livingston, Robert, partner 
with Captain Kidd, 10 1 

Livingston fainily, descent 
of, 87, note; armorial 
bearings of, 115; leaders in , 
the popular party, 125,136, 
142; prominent members 
of, 155, note; 156, note; 
supporters of Hamilton, 
1S7; indorse Burr, 189; dis- 
trust of Burr, 191; appor- 
tionment of patronage 
among, 196; opposition to 
Burr, 197; decline of pow- 
er, 200; power of , 202 

Local boards, 239 

Loco-foco party, 236 

Long Island, English take 
possession of eastern half 
of, 26; revolt against Stuy- 
vesant on, 40; Puritans 
refuse to be taxed, 53; 
horse-racing on, 53; trou- 
bles between Puritans and 
Colve, 56; Leisler's ope»a- 
tionsin,84; Tory majority 
in, 158; landing of British 



Index 



287 



troops on, 161; supply of 
provisions from, 205 

Long Island Sound, first ship 
on, 9; new settlements on, 
2 5 ; passage forced by Bri t- 
ish fleet, 164, 165; steam- 
boats on, 216 

Lovelace, Gov. Francis, suc- 
cessor to NicoUs, 52; char- 
acter, 52; troubles with 
Long Island Puritans, 53; 
supported by Dutch and 
English, 53; relations with 
Indians, 53; establishes 
mail to Boston and Hart- 
ford, 54 

Loyalists, devotion of, 151; 
plundered, 153 ; their news- 
paper office wrecked, 154; 
flight of, i6o- in popula- 
tion surrounding the city, 
166; deported on evacu- 
ation, 172; Hamilton and 
Jay as defenders of, 182; 
restored to legal equality 
with other citizens, 182; 
see also Tories 

Loyalty, lack of, in early 
Dutch settlers, 16; of citi- 
zens at outbreak of civil 
war, 247 

Ludlow family, prominent 
members of, 155, and note. 

Lutheran Church, growth of, 
256 

Lutherans, persecution by 
Stuyvesant, 42; religious 
liberty under English rule, 

5° 
Liitzen, battle of, 4 

Madagascar, pirate station 

at, 94 
Madison, James, joint author 

of the "Federalist," 183 
Magazines, 260 
Magyar immigration, 256 



Maiden Lane, origin of name, 

37 

Mall, the, 113 

Manhattan, discovery of, i, 
6; value compared with 
Java, 4; Dutch post on, 9; 
early civilized life on, 10; 
sold to the Dutch, 14 

Manufacture, right to, 25 

Markets, 205 

Massachusetts, effects of re- 
bellion in, 180 

Mayor, first, 50; office abol- 
ished, 55; appointed by 
governor, 67 ; first elective, 
83 ; appointment of James 
Duane, 178 

Mayoralty, colonial system 
of appointment, 178; 
change in manner of elec- 
tion to, 214; first election 
by universal suffrage, 235 

Mayors, various nationalities 
of, 107 

Meeting, first popular, 29 

Mercenary troops. New Eng- 
land, 28; employment of 
Hessians, and hatred for, 

159 
Merchants, early colonial,i 17 
Methodist Church, strength 

before the Revolution and 

at present day, 109; in- 
crease in, 174 
Metropolitan Museum of Art, 

260 
Metropolitan Opera House, 

260 
Milbome, Jacob, leader of 

popular party in 1689, 75; 

hung, 86; disinterred, 100 
Military law, established by 

Colve, 57 
Militia, rising against Gov. 

Nicholson, 77, 78 
Mill, the first, 18 
Minuit, Peter, first governor 



388 



Index 



of the colony, 13; charac- 
ter, 15; buys Manhattan 
Island from Indians, 14; 
relations with Indians, 16; 
relations with English, 18; 
rule of, 18; recall of, 19; 
enters Swedish service, 19; 
leads band of Swedes to 
the Delaware, 26 
Mitchell, Dr. Samuel, 208 
Mohawk River, fort near, 9 
Mohawks, secret society, re- 
organization of, 146 
Mohawk Valley, under rule 

of Johnson family, 136 
Money, issue of paper, 107 
Montreal, Schuyler's raids 

on, 83 
Morris, Chief- Justice, ex- 
pelled from ofifice, 124; 
conservative principles of, 

137 

Morris, Gouvemeur, type of 
Whig party, 150; attitude 
in the Revolution, 151; 
leader of Federalist party, 
181; position in 181 2, 201 ; 
elected senator, 189; plans 
Erie Canal, 215 

Morris family, armorial bear- 
ings of, 115; leaders in 
Provincial Congress, 155 

Morse, Samuel F. B., 216 

Mount Vernon Gardens, 204 

Museums, 260 

Native American party, 194, 

237 
Naturalization, 47, 66 
Negroes, early importations 
of, 34; legislation against 
assemblages of, 67; plot of 
1 74 1, 119; massacre of, 
122; annual celebration of 
Pinkster, 116; emancipa- 
tion, 211; suffrage, 213; 
in draft riots, 248 



Netherlands, cradle of sea- 
men, I 

New Amsterdam, founded, 
1 4 ; mixture of population , 
14, 34; beginning of stable 
existence, 34; compared 
with New England, 35; 
society in, 35, 36; incorpo- 
ration of, 36; appearance 
of the town, 37, 38; cos- 
tume in, 39; amusements, 
39; seized by England, 43, 
44 ; name changed to New 
York, 46, 57 

New England, English settle- 
ments in, 3 ; compared with 
New Amsterdam, 35; colo- 
nists held in check by Stuy- 
vesant,4o; settlers opposed 
to aristocracy and Episco- 
oacy, 49; united to New 
York and Nev/ Jersey, 69; 
action on fall of the Stuarts, 
74; indifference to welfare 
of New York, 99; quarrels 
with Gov. Fletcher, 99; in- 
difference to New York's 
prosperity, 129; sympa- 
thy for, in New York, 
146 

New Englanders, character- 
istics of, 23; kept in check 
by Colve, 56 

"New England Invasion," 
the, 211 

New Jersey, settlements in, 
25; severed from New 
York, 59 ; united with New 
York and New England, 
69; retreat of Washington 
to, 165 

"New Netherland," the, 13 

New Netherland Company, 
formation of the, 11 

New Netherlands, value com- 
pared with Java and Suri- 
nam, 4, 57; named, 11; 



Index 



289 



decline of, 23; seized by 

England, 44 
Newsboys' lodging house, 257 
Newspapers, scurrility of, 

189, 190; see also their 

titles. 
New Year observance, 116 
New Yorker, composition of 

a typical, 108 
New York Medical Society, 

New York Province, united 
with New England and 
New Jersey, 69 

New York Society Library, 

174 

Nicholson, Sir Francis, leader 
of aristocratic part}^ in 
1689, 74; quarrel with 
militia, 78 

Nicolls, Col. Richard, seizes 
New Amsterdam, 44; agent 
for Duke of York, 47 : rule 
in New York, 47; charac- 
ter, 47, 51 ; refuses right of 
election of representatives, 
50; treatment of Indians, 
51; benefits of his control, 
51 ; returns to England, 52 

Night-schools. 257 

"Nine Men," the, 42 

Non -importation agreement, 
the, 139 

North Carolina, effects of re- 
bellion in, 180 

Northwest passage, search 
for, I, 6 

O'Brien, Colonel, killed in 

draft riots, 249 
"Onrest," the, first ship built 

in American waters, 9 
Opera-house riot, 233 

Pacific Mail Steamship Com- 
pany, 219 
Packet ships, 221 

19 



Palisades, the, 8 

Panic, of 1836, 234 

Paper money, issue of, 107, 

178 
Parks, 257 
Park Theatre, 203 
Parties, political, 49, 61; 

effect of race on, 75 
Passport system, 24 
Paternal government, 24, 32, 

Patriotism of Revolutionary 
party, 159; of Presby- 
terian settlers, 16 r, note. 

Patronage, early system of, 
178; Jefferson's maxim as 
to, 195; merciless use of, 
197 

Patroon, title of, 16 

Patroons, troubles with, 17; 
privileges of, 25; turned 
into manorial lords, 50; 
Stuyvesant's struggles 
with, 41 

Penn, William, advice to 
James II., 64 

Philadelphia, compared with 
New York in 1710, 108; 
sentiment about Tea Act, 
146; meeting of Congress 
at, 185 

Phillipse family, leaders in 
court party, 74, 136 

Pinkster, observance of, 116 

Piracy, premium on, 98 

Pirates, 91, 92; success and 
numbers of, 92, 93 ; engaged 
in slave trade, 93 ; efforts 
toward abolition of, 96 ; 
Bellomont's crusade 
against, 10 1; career of 
Captain Kidd, loi 

Players' Club, 260 

Plots, rumors of Catholic, 77 ; 
negro, 120; for abduction 
or murder of Washington, 
160 



290 



Index 



252, 



fore- 



Plundering, by Continental 
Army, 161 

Plymouth settlers, enter the 
Connecticut Valley, 2 1 

Police board, 239 

Police riots, 239 

Polish immigration, 256 

Political corruption, 251, 
263 

Poor-house, 118 

Poor-laws, 107 

Popul ar government , 
shadowing of, 29 

Popular party, in 1689, 73; 
constitution of , 74, 136; in 
control of the city, 78; 
downfall of, 86; opposed 
by Fletcher, 97; corrup- 
tion of, 104; hated by 
Combury, 104; newspaper 
of the, 123; known as 
Whigs, 125; great families 
in, 136; shrink from inde- 
pendence, 149; excesses 

by, 151 
Popular rights, struggle for,88 
Population, increase of, 18; 
character of early, 34, 35, 
47, 48; at time of second 
establishment of English 
rule, 59; fusion of races, 
72, 108, 227; in 1710, 108; 
at outbreak of Revolution, 
108; diversity of, 108: line 
drawn between Provincial 
and Old World people, 11^; 
Presbyterians, Dutch, and 
Huguenots, 136; increase 
after Revolution, 173; at 
beginning of nineteenth 
century, 202; condition at 
close of war of 1812, 210, 
211; in 1820, 213; in- 
crease of, 215; in i860, 245; 
proportion oif foreign ele- 
ment in, 256; American- 
ization of, 256 



Portugal, early explorations 

of, 2 
"Potiphar Papers," 241 
Poverty, dangers of, 222 
Presbyterians, opposed to 
aristocracy and episco- 
pacy, 49; persecuted b}'^ 
Cornbur^/, 104, 105; im- 
migration of, 107; strength 
in eighteenth centtiry, 110 
Press, li'berty of, 124 
Press-gangs, 139 
Princeton College, 116 
Prison-ships, horrors of, 170 
Privateering, popular and 

profitable, 91, 92, 93, 210 
Privateers, depredations on 
commerce, 54, 90; capture 
of French ships by, 84; 
riots of crews, 92; fitted 
out in British interests, 166 
Protestants, liberty of con- 
science granted to, 87 
Provincial Assembly, de- 
manded and granted, 63; 
issue of writs for, 65 
Public buildings, 19, 257 
Public lands, apportionment 

of, by Fletcher, 97 
Puritans hostility to Dutch, 
2 1 ; insubordination on 
Long Island, 53; troubles 
with Colve, 56'; hostility of 
Andros to, 61 
Putnam, Gen. Israel, 164 

Quakers, refuge for, 26; per- 
secution by Stuyvesant, 
42; in the eighteenth cen- 
tury, 109 

Queen Anne, appoints Lord 
Combury governor, 104; 
resemblance of Lord Com- 
bury to, 104 

Race, effect on parties, 75 
Race prejudice, early, 49 



Index 



291 



Races, mixture of, 14 
Railroads, development of, 

216 
Raritan Indians, war with, 

26, 27, 28 
Redemptioners, 118 
Red River, Valley of, barred 

from settlement, 16 
Red Sea, trade with ports of, 

01 ; piracy on, 94 
Red Star Line, the, 221 
Religion, effect on parties, 75 
Religious bodies, in colonial 

times, 109 
Religious differences, 229, 

230 
Religious liberty, 26, 47, 50, 

53, 64, 65. 174 
Rensselaerswyck, extent of, 

17; Stuyvesant's troubles 

with the patroon of, 41 
Republican party, origin of 

name, 186; rise of, 237 
"Restless," the; see "On- 

rest" 
Revolution, causes leading 

to, 126; first bloodshed in 

the, 145; dangers of, 153; 

operations against New 

York, 159; results of war, 

193 

Ring politics, 252, 253 

Riots, Stamp Act, 140; lib- 
erty-pole, 144, 145; ante- 
Revolution, 153, 154; anti- 
Federalist, 190; theatre, 
232; Astor Place, 233; 
bread, 234; labor, 234; 
abolition, 234; election, 
234; police, 239; draft, 
250; Hibernian, 250 

Riverside Drive, 257 

Roman Catholic Church, 
hatred of, 76; priests con- 
demned to death by Assem- 
bly, 105; weakness before 
the Revolution, 109; in- 



creased strength at present 
day, 109; growth, 215, 
229,256; Americanization 
of, 231 

Roman Catholics, forbidden 
entrance to the colony, 
112; patriotism of, in 
Maryland, 161, note; lib- 
eration of, 174 

Roosevelt, Isaac, 155, note. 

Roosevelt, John J., 156, note. 

Roosevelt, Nicholas, leader 
in Provincial Congress, 155 
note; pioneer in steam 
navigation, 209 

P..ussian immigration, 256 

Rynders, Isaiah, 238, 246 

Sabbatarian legislation, 67 

St. Lawrence River, French 
commonwealth on, 4 

St. Mark's Church, 31 

St. Patrick's Church, 240 

SanitaryCommission.the, 248 

Sanitary conditions, 205 

Santa F6, 5 

Saskatchewan Valley, barred 
from settlement, 16 

Savings bank, the first, 206 

Scandinavian immigration, 
256 

Schepens, abolition of the, 
50; office restored, 55 

Schoohnaster, the first, 20 

Schools, 118 

School system, founded, 206; 
Roman Catholic opposi- 
tion to, 237 

Schout-fiscal, the, 19; aboli- 
tion of the, 50; office re- 
stored, 55 

Schuyler, Peter, leads oppo- 
sition to Leisler in Albany, 
83; raids on Montreal, 84 

Schuyler, Philip J., elected 
senator, 189 

Schuyler family, leaders in 



292 



Index 



the popular party, 136; 
supporters of Hamilton. 

Scientific societies, 207 

Sclave immigration, 256 

"Scribner's Magazine," 260 

Seafaring population, 90, 91 

Seamen, an age of, 1,2; brav- 
ery of colonial, 130 

"Sea-Mew," the, brings the 
first true colonists, 13 

Sea-rovers, 2 

Sears, Isaac, 155 

Secession, proposed, 246 

Sedan chairs, 115 

Self-government, Dutch love 
for, 24; demands for, 29; 
early steps toward, 66, 90; 
failure under James II., 69; 
action of Assembly in re- 
gard to, 105; a necessary 
ingredient in, 106; of Can- 
ada and Australia, 131; 
restriction of, 17S; powers 
of American cities con- 
trasted with those of Eu- 
rope, 178 

Selfishness, among colonists, 
T29 

Separationists, 149 

Separatist idea, 70 

Servants, early colonial, 118, 
121 

Settlement, first, 8, 12 

Seventh Regiment, 247 

Seymour, Gov. Horatio, con- 
duct in draft riots, 249; in 
presidential election of 
1868, 252 

Sheriff, first, 50; office abol- 
ished, 55; appointment of , 
178 

Sherman, Gen. W. T., 261 

Ship-building, 220 

Slavers, as pirates, 93 

Slaves, early importations of, 
35 ; legislation against as- 



semblages of, 67; insur- 
rections of, 107, 120; in 
early colonial times, 119, 
122; 5e^ also Negroes 

Slave trade, 91 

Sloughter, Governor, 85, 86 

Smith, Rev. Sydney, criti- 
cism on American litera- 
ture, 240 

Smuggling, early, 92; pre- 
mium on, 98 ; put down by 
Bellomont, 100 

Social life, 115, 185; at be- 
ginning of nineteenth cen- 
tury, 202, 204; in modem 
times, 242, 244, 262 

Social lines, 112 

Society, in New Amsterdam, 
35, 36;_in 1710, 108, 109 

Sons of Liberty, organization 
of, 138; meeting of, 140; 
defense of the liberty-pole, 
144; reorganization of, 
146; riots and proceedings 
of, 153 

Spam, early explorations of, 
2 ; waning power of, 2 ; ten- 
acity in America, 3; war- 
fare of the West India 
Company against, 12, 13; 
wars with, 90 

Spanish wars, retarded 
American Revolution, 132 

Spoils system, establishment 
of, 194; De Witt Clinton's 
introduction of, 215 

Sports, early colonial,' 115, 
116 

Stadt-huys, the, 37 

Stamp Act, passage of, 138, 
139; opposition to, 138, 
149; rioting, 138, 141; 
repeal of, 141 

Stamp Act Congress, meeting 
of, 138; Declaration of 
Rights and Address by 138 

Staten Island, settlements 



Index 



293 



on, 25; Tory majority in, 

Steam navigation, beginning 
of, 208; increase in, 216; 
Vanderbilt's connection 
with, 218 

Stevens, John, pioneer in 
steam navigation, 209 

Stockades, Indian, 28; on 
site of Wall Street, 37 

Stock-swindling, 252 

Storm-King, 8 

Street railways, beginning of, 
238 

Streets, laying out, 25; light- 
ing of, 205 ; cleaning of, 205 

vStuart dynasty, consequences 
of overthow of, 73, 89 

Stuyvesant, Peter, sticceeds 
Kieft as governor, 30; tra- 
dition about, 31; personal 
appearance and character, 
32; residence, 37; rela- 
tions with Indians and 
New En glanders, 40; 
seizes the Swedish colony 
on the Delaware, 40 ; quar- 
rels with the colonists, 40 

Suffrage, limitations of, 175; 
widening of, 213; univer- 
sal, 262 

Sugar-house, used as prison, 
170 

Sumptuary laws, 24 

Surinam, value compared 
with New Netherlands, 52, 

57 
Swallow Tail Line of packets, 

the, 221 
Swedes, settlements in Amer- 
ica, 3, 4; trouble on the 
Delaware, 26, 40 

Tammany Hall, controls 
Democratic party, 237 

Taverns, the first, 21; estab- 
lishment of, 118 



Long Island 
by Colve, 57; 
132; claim 



Taxation, opposition to Stuy- 
vesant's plan of, 42; of 
Puritans, 53; 
; indirect, 131, 
of "no taxa- 
tion without representa- 
tion," 132 

Tea Act, passage of, 146; 
opposition to, 146, 147, 
149 

Tenant-farming, favored by 
Fletcher, 97 

Theatre, early, 115 

"Times," the, exposures of 
Tweed, 253 

Tories, name assumed by 
court party, 125; numer- 
ous in New York, 134; 
rioting by, 149; persecu- 
tion of. 150, 154; ferocity 
of struggle with Whigs, 
153; weakening influence 
atnong colonists, 157; plot- 
ting among, 160; destruc- 
tion of power, 177; see 
also Loyalists 

Trading companies, 11, 13 

Traveling, in early colonial 
days, IIS 

Treasurer, early powers of, 
178 

Trenton, battle of, 165 

"Tri-Insula," proposed inde- 
pendent commonwealth, 
246 

Trinity Church, rebuilt, 173; 
beauty of, 240 

Tryon, Gov. William, 154 

Tweed, William M., 253 

Underbill, Capt. John, In- 
dian fighter, 28, 40 

Union, rise of the principle 
of 179 

Union Club, 257 

Union League Club, 257 

University Club, 257 



294 



Index 



Ury, Rev. John, hung for 
complicity in negro plot, 

122 

Van Cortlandt, Stephanus, 
leader of aristocratic party 
in 1689, 74; chased from 
the city, 82 

Vanderbilt, Cornelius, 217, 
219 

Van Rensselaer, patroon, 17 

Van Rensselaer family, lead- 
ers in Provincial Congress, 
155; STipporters of Hamil- 
ton, 187; inflttence of, 200 

Van Twiller, Wouter, suc- 
ceeds Minuit, 19; charac- 
ter, 20; relations with In- 
dians, 20; relations with 
English, 20; removal of, 22 

Van Wyck, Abraham, 156, 
note. 

Varick, Robert, mayoralty of, 
196 

Vassalage, system of, 17 

Virginia, English settlements 
in, 3; influence over other 
colonies, 150 

Virginians, take possession 
of Dutch forts on Dela- 
ware River, 21 

Vox Poptdi placards, 140 

Walker, William, filibuster, 
219 

Wallabout Bay, prison ships 
in, 170 

Walloons, early colonists, 13, 
14; early settlers of New 
Amsterdam, 34. 

Wall Street, origin of name, 
37; swindling in, 252 

Warehouses, first, 18 

War of 181 2, 209 

Washington, D. C., 261 

Washington, George, re- 
bukes destroyers of monu- 



ment, 142; passes through 
New York to Boston, 154; 
makes New York his head- 
quarters, 156; discordant 
materials for his work, 158; 
plot for abduction or mur- 
der of, 160; proposes to 
bum the city, 160; train- 
ing his raw army, 160, 161; 
punishes outrages by his 
army, 161; rescues forces 
from Long Island, 162; 
courage of, 162, 163; evac- 
uates New York, 162, 163; 
at rout at Kip's Bay, 
163; at Haarlem Heights, 
164; retreat from New 
York, 165; retreats to 
New Jersey, 165; crosses 
the Delaware, 165; wins 
battle of Trenton, .165; 
difficulties of his position, 
171; re-enters city, 171; 
influence of, 180; inaugu- 
rated President, 185; a 
Federalist, 188; appoint- 
ments in New York, 188, 
195; respect for memory 
of, 259 
Water, early supply of, 205 
Wealth, increase after Revo- 
lution, 173; growth of , 245 
Webster, Noah, 190 
"We Dare" placards, 140 
Weehawken, N. J., Hamil- 
ton-Burr duel at, 199 
"Weekly Journal," the, es- 
tablished, 123, 124 
West India Company, char- 
tered, 11; real founders of 
the city, 12, 13; magni- 
tude of its operations, 12, 
13; appreciation of stock, 
of, t6; treatment of col- 
ony, 18; decline of interest 
in New Netherlands, 22; 
death of, 55 ■ 



Index 



295 



West Indies, early trade with, 
90 

Whale fisheries, early, 53 

Whig party, the, 235 

Whigs, name assumed by 
popular party, 125; atti- 
tude in early days of Revo- 
lution, 150; ferocity of 
struggle with Tories, 153 

Whitehall, 37 

Whitehall Street, origin of 
name, 37 

White Plains, battle of, 165 

Wild beasts, 14 

William III., accession of, 70; 
appoints governor and lieu- 
tenant-governor, 85; grant 
of liberties by, 90 

Windmills, 19 

Wolves, reward for scalps, 37 

Wood, Fernando, elected 



mayor, 238; disloyalty of, 

246 
Working-classes, 263 
Working-girls' clubs, 257 

Yellow fever, scourges of, 205 
York, Duke of, 46; patentee 
of New Netherlands, 47 ; 
character, 53 ; advocates 
religious tolerance for New 
York, 53; summons An- 
dros to England, 62 ; sends 
spy to examine affairs of 
colony, 62; takes advice, 
from William Penn, 64; 
see also James II. 

Zenger, John Peter, founder 
of the "Weekly Journal," 
123; arrest and trial of, 
124 



APR 2 1903 






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